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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 



THE MULATTO IN THE 
UNITED STATES 



INCLUDING A STUDY OF THE 
ROLE OF MIXED-BLOOD RACES 
THROUGHOUT THE WORLD 



A DISSERTATION 

Submitted to the Faculty 

of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature 

in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 

Department of Sociology 



BY 

EDWARD BYRON REUTER 






BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 
1918 



Copyright, 1918, by Richard G. Bad 
All Rights Reserved 



GER 



ant 

University 



DtQ I iSif 




/ 




E_ \%5 



.6X 



^4-F 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



U 



PREFACE 

/ ~\F the social problems before the American people for 
^^ solution, there is none perhaps of more fundamental 
importance than that created by the presence of some ten 
million persons of a race and color different from that of 
the major part of the country's population. The future of 
' the nation is in a degree conditioned by the treatment which 
I this race problem receives. Is the amalgamation of the 
I races in contact to be regarded as an ideal? If so, there 
remains the problem of working out a technique by means 
of which some degree of harmony and good will can be 
established between the racial groups during the period that 
mongrelization is in progress. Or would the infusion of ten 
per cent of Negro blood so materially lower the ideals and 
the intellectual and cultural capacity of the population as 
to cause the country to drop out of the group of culture 
nations? If so, there is the problem of checking the fusion 
already in progress, as well as the problem of establishing 
some sort of harmonious working relations between the races 
while they separately work out their racial destiny. In 
regard to the fundamental question there is as yet no con- 
census of scholarly opinion; the problem has scarcely been 
attacked in a scholarly way. The more immediately prac- 
tical problem has as yet received little intellectual consider- 
ation : for the most part it still arouses emotion rather than 
thought. 

At the same time that the social problem created by the 
presence of the race in America challenges the careful study 
of scientific men and taxes the ingenuity of the statesman 
and the administrator, the racial group itself presents the 
richest field for study of a people in evolution of any group 

5 



/ 



6 Preface 

in the modern world. Every stage in the social evolutioi ' 
and in the intellectual and moral development of a peoph 
is present in the American Negro group. Yet the study ol 
the Negro and his American environment — his reaction anc 
responses to that environment and the effect of that reactior 
and response on his intellectual growth and social develop- 
ment, as well as the influence which his presence and peculiar 
racial traits have had in modifying or determining th<| 
direction and the degree of development of American cus-j 
toins and institutions — has received but a trifling amount; 
of attention from scholars. Discussion of the Negro and 
the American race problem has for the most part been left! 
to the doctrinaire and the demagogue, neither of whom has 
accomplished much toward the discovery of truth, even 
toward the discovery of those relatively simple truths which 
must be known and acknowledged before any rational pro- 
gram looking toward a more harmonious relation between 
the races can be advanced. 

The following study is not a brief in behalf of, nor in 
opposition to, racial amalgamation ; yet it presents certain 
of the facts which must be known before any pronouncement 
of scientific value can be made upon that subject. Neither 
is it a study of the race problem, in the narrow sense in 
which that phrase is popularly understood, yet it presents 
certain facts which must be taken into account in any intel- 
ligent dealing with that problem. The book is an attempt 
to state one sociological problem arising when two races, 
divergent as to culture and distinct as to physical appear- 
ance, are brought into contact under the conditions of mod- 
ern life and produce a hybrid offspring whose characteristic 
physical appearance prevents them from passing as either 
the one or the other. Under such conditions physical 
appearance becomes the basis for class and caste distinc- 



Preface *7 

tions ; a biological phenomenon gives rise to a sociological 
problem. It is with the sociological consequences of race 
intermixture, not with the biological problems of the inter- 
mixture itself, that the present study has to do. The 
investigation proceeds throughout on the assumption that 
no permanent good can accrue to the Negro people as a 
whole and that unfortunate and avoidable discord in inter- 
racial relations is promoted by the concealment of truth and 
the denial of fact. 

The writer takes this opportunity to acknowledge his 
indebtedness to Dr. Robert E. Park, at whose suggestion the 
work was begun and to whose friendly encouragement and 
generous criticism during the progress of the investigation 
much of the merit of the study is due. In no respect, how- 
ever, is Dr. Park to be considered responsible for any errors 
of fact or interpretation which may appear in the text. To 
Dr. William I. Thomas the writer is indebted — to mention 
but one way — for mediation in publication, always a difficult' 
matter where a study deviates either in method or content 
from the strictly conventional. 

It was through the courtesy of Editor R. S. Abbott and 
the other members of the staff of the Chicago Defender that 
the writer had placed at his disposal, during; the entire 
period of investigation, some sixty odd of the best and best 
known Negro newspapers. He here acknowledges his in- 
debtedness and expresses his appreciation. Finally to ^a. 
large number of other prominent Negroes, who may not here 
be mentioned by name, the writer is indebted for information 
on many matters of race sentiment and attitude and 
especially for information concerning the racial ancestry of 
members of their race. E. B. R. 

Palo Alto, California 
February, 1918. 



m 









CONTENTS 



?HAPTEB PAGE 

I. Introduction 11 

II. Mixed-blood Races 21 

In Primitive Times 21 

In Spain 23 

The Eurasians 26 

The Eskimos 31 

In Spanish America 33 

In the Philippines 51 

III. Mixed-blood Races (concluded) ,55 

In Cuba, Porto Rico and Santo Domingo .... 55 

In Haiti . 61 

In Jamaica .65 

In South Africa 71 

North American Indians 77 

IV. The Mulatto: The Key to the Race Problem ... 86 

V. The Amount of Race Intermixture in the United States 105 

VI. Nature of Race Intermixture in the United States 127 

Intermarriage 127 

The Concubinage of Colored Women by White Men . 139 

Unlawful Polygamy 144 

Intermarriage with Indians 155 

Intermixture During Slavery and at Present . . . .158 

VII. The Growth of the Mulatto Class 166 

VIII. Leading Men of the. Negro Race 183 

IX. The History and Biography of the Negro . . . .216 

X. The Negro and the Mulatto in Professional and 

Artistic Pursuits 246 

XI. The Negro and the Mulatto in Business and Industry 293 

XII. The Role of the Mulatto in the Inter-Racial Situation 315 

XIII. The Role of the Mulatto in the United States . . 338 

XIV. Summary: Present Tendencies 375 

Index to Names of Men Whose Ethnic Ancestry is An- 
alyzed • 399 

General Index * 41S 



THE MULATTO IN THE 
UNITED STATES 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTION 



THE mulatto, as the term is used in this study, includes 
all those members of the Negro race with a visible ad- 
mixture of white blood. 1 Thus used, the word is a general 
term to include all Negroes of mixed ancestry regardless of 
the degree of intermixture. It includes all persons who are 
recognized, in the communities in which they live, as being 
of mixed blood. It is in this sense that the word is most 
widely used and best understood in this country. 2 

x The United States Census Office has not been consistent in its defini- 
tion of the term. ". . . the fact that the definition of the term 'mulatto* 
adopted at different censuses has not been entirely uniform may affect 
the comparability of the figures in some degree." In 1870 and 1910, 
however, the term was applied to all persons having any perceptible trace 
of Negro blood, excepting, of course, Negroes of pure blood. In 1850 
and 1860 the term seems not to have been defined. In the returns for 
1890 the Negroes of mixed-blood were classified into mulattoes, quad- 
roons and octoroons. U. S. Census Report 1910: Population, Vol. 1, p. 
129. 

a "The offspring, ... of a negress by a white man, or of a white 
woman by a negro; in a more general sense, a person of mixed Caucasian 
and negro blood, or Indian and negro blood." Webster, International 
Dictionary. 

"Loosely used for any half-breed resembling a mulatto." Murray, 
Dictionary. 

11 



12 The Mulatto in the United States 

Strictly defined, the word designates the first generation 
of hybridization between the Negro and the Caucasian 
races. 3 The hybrid may be the offspring of a white father 
and a Negro mother or the child of a Negro father and a 
white mother. Both ancestral elements, however, must be 
of racially pure lineage else the offspring resulting from the 
union will not be a first generation hybrid and hence not a 
mulatto in the biological sense. 4 The word thus delimited 
becomes a biological concept unavailable for use except in a 
technical, biological sense. It designates a particular and 
scientifically interesting but relatively infrequent type of hu- 
man hybrid. It is, in this usage, coordinate with the words 
mango, sambo, quadroon, octoroon, mustifee and the like 5 

8 In its derivation the word is from the Spanish mulato, the diminutive/ 
of mulo, a mule. So mulato is literally a young mule — so called because 
of hybrid origin. Century Dictionary. 

*The first cross, for example, between the Negroes and the North 
European races gives a mulatto in the true and accurate biological senst . 
The offspring shows definite predicable physical characteristics. This is 
not true in the case of crossings between the Mediterranean peoples and 
the Negro. The offspring here may show in the first generation the 
variability that appears in the second generation cross of North Euro- 
pean and Negro. The ancient intermixture of black blood in the South 
European peoples makes the effect of their crossing with the Negro that 
of the crossing of a pure and a hybrid race. 

"Olmsted, writing about 1854, states that the French of the Southern 
States classify the colored people, according to the greater or less pre- 
ponderance of Negro blood, as follows: 

Sacatra griffe and negress 

Griffe Negro and mulatto 

Marabon mulatto and griffe 

Mulatto .white and Negro 

Quadroon white and mulatto 

Metif white and Quadroon 

Meamelouc »white and metif 

Quarteron s white and meamelouc 

Sang-mele white and quarteron 

Frederick Law Olmsted, A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, p. 583 



Introduction 18 

each of which connotes a specific type of racial cross. 6 

But for purposes of sociological study it is the mixed 
group as a whole, not the degree of hybridization nor the 
particular types of hybrid, that is of prime importance. So 

Davenport gives the following classification: 

Mulatto Negro and white 

Quadroon mulatto and white 

Octoroon quadroon and white 

Cascos .mulatto and mulatto 

Sambo .mulatto and Negro 

Mango sambo and Negro 

Mustifee octoroon and white 

Mustifino mustifee and white 

C. B. Davenport, Heredity of Skin Color in Negro-White Crosses, p. 27. 

fl The mulatto, of course, differs in certain marked ways from other 
types of intermixture. He is the product of the cross between pure races 
and, like all first generation hybrids, shows an unvarying uniformity and 
a universal instability of physical type. The Negro characters are al- 
ways dominant and appear prominently; the Caucasian characters are 
recessive and for the most part remain concealed. It is possible to pre- 
dict with scientific certainty the characters that will appear in the first 
generation hybrid. 

In the second and subsequent generations the Caucasian and Negroid 
characters combined in the mulatto, i.e., the first generation hybrid, seg- 
regate in almost infinitely variable ways. Individuals appear with the 
typical characters— skin color, hair color, hair length, eye color, body 
pj^pj: and the like — redistributed in endless new combinations. Indi- 
viduals appear with light skin and tufted hair, black skin and blue eyes, 
with dark skin and lank hair, with fair skin and light but curly hair, 
with the skin coloration and hair formation of the white man and the 
body odor of the Negro; so with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other 
human characters. The uniformity of the first generation hybrid be- 
comes an almost infinite variety as further generations appear. 

But however wide tfie variations, however numerous the varieties, the 
mixed race can never become, biologically, either Negro or white. Inter- 
breeding or further crossing produces new hybrids. No amount of inter- 
breeding or of crossing can ever produce a white man or a Negro from 
a hybrid ancestry. The hybrid individual is a biologically unstable type 
and he and his descendants remain hybrid and physically unstable to 
the extermination of the group. 



14 The Mulatto in the United States 

if the biological terminology be adhered to, it becomes neces- 
sary to adopt some other term to include all individuals of 
mixed ancestry. No term more satisfactory than mulatto 
has been suggested. The word coloured is used in this sense 
in the English publications, but, as this word is widely used 
in the United States as synonymous with Negro, it is no! 
available here. The term mulatto will therefore be used in 
the following pages in its more general and popular sense 
as defined above. When it is used in the more restricted 
sense to designate the first generation offspring of a Negro- 
white cross, the fact will be so indicated. 

The mulatto, then, is a man of mixed blood. But it is not 
that alone that makes the mulatto a matter of sociological 
importance. Mixture of blood is a characteristic of all 
races. 7 

Man always has been a restless animal moving to and fro 
in search of food or adventure, to escape his enemies or 
merely in response to a nomadic impulse. Ratzel, 8 speaking 
of the "innumerable wanderings" of certain Pacific primitive 
peoples, says that this should not be considered as an excep- 
tion but rather as the rule, "for none of these races was ever 
at rest." Again he says 9 that "It would hardly be possible 

7 The term "race" is to be understood in its popular rather than in its 
ethnological sense. Ethnologically it means a human group which owes 
its distinctive traits to the selective forces of nature acting upon biologi- 
cal mutation and which invariably breeds true to type. As used here it 
refers to peoples rather than to biological races. Practically all the 
present day races are the products of intermixture in varying degrees 
of previously more or less well established types, and the adaptation of 
the hybridized stock to the special environment. For the purpose in 
hand we are not concerned with race as a physical concept but with race 
as a social unity which arises by and through social development. 

8 Friedrich Ratzel, The History of Mankind, English Translation by 
A. J. Butler, Vol. I, p. 174. 

• Ibid., Vol. I, p. 446. Speaking here of the Malays. 



Introduction 15 

to name a race, however small, the traditions of which are 
not based upon a migration." 

Migrations brought contacts with new and strange peo- 
ples resulting, in some cases, in an intermingling of blood, 
which, combined with environmental adaptation, produced 
modified racial types. Johnston 10 summarizes the early mix- 
ture of races in these words : 

. . . Ever since the existing human species diverged 
into its four or five existing varieties or sub-species, 
there has been a constant opposite movement at work 
to unify the type. Whites have returned southwards 
and mingled with Australoids, Australoids have united 
with Negroids, and produced Melanesians, and Papu- 
ans, and these, again, have mixed with proto-Cauca- 
sians or with Mongols to form the Polynesian. The 
earliest types of White man have mingled with the prim- 
itive Mongol, or directly with the primitive Negro. 
There is an ancient Negroid strain underlying the pop- 
ulations of Southern and Western France, Italy, Sicily, 
Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Wales and 
Scotland. Evidences of the former existence of these 
negroid people are not only to be found in the features 
of their mixed descendants at the present day, but the 
fact is attested by skulls, skeletons, and works of art 
of more or less great antiquity in France, Italy, etc., 
.... There are few Negro peoples at the present day 
— perhaps only the Bushmen, the Congo-Pigmies, and 
a few tribes of forest Negroes — which can be said to 
be without more or less trace of ancient White inter- 
mixture. 

Old races have been constantly broken up and new ones 
formed from the fragments. 11 Powerful groups have con- 
quered smaller groups or imposed themselves as a ruling 

10 Sir Harry H. Johnston, "Racial Problems and the Congress of 
Races," Contemporary Review, Vol. 100, pp. 159-60. 
u Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 129. 



16 The Mulatto in the United States 

class on weaker but more numerous peoples and absorbed or 
been absorbed by the conquered group. No primitive group 
has remained long in the form peculiar to it ; all were being 
constantly modified by the fusion with other types. 12 

Reinsch 13 shows that in modern times the intermixture of 
races has been greatly increased as a result of the great 
advance in the safety and rapidity of communication which 
made possible the contact in large numbers of races hereto- 
fore far distant from each other. At the present time there 
are no pure races in Europe 14 and few of any consequence 
elsewhere in the world. 15 

If the attention be turned from races to the composition 
of nationalities the mixture of blood is even more apparent. 
European nations, without exception, are a medley of im- 
perfectly blended types. 

. . . The modern Italian, Frenchman, and German is 
a composite of the broken fragments of several differ- 
ent racial groups. Interbreeding has broken up the 
ancient stocks, and interaction and imitation have cre- 
ated new national types which exhibit definite uniformi- 
ties in language, manners and formal behavior. 16 

Mayo-Smith 17 says that "There has never been a state 
whose population was not made up of heterogeneous ethnical 

"Ratzel, History of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 395. 

"Paul S. Reinsch, "The Negro Race and European Civilization," 
American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 11, p. 145. 

"William Z. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 109-10, 597 ff. 
Edward Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, pp. 282 f. 

"The mixtures are, of course, generally of nearly allied races. They 
are rather mixtures within a single race, as the different groups of the 
white race or different tribes of the Negro race, than between races. 

18 R. E. Park, "Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups," Publications 
of the Sociological Society, Vol. 8, p. 66. 

17 Richmond Mayo-Smith, "Theories of Mixture of Races and Nation? 
alities," Yah Review, Vol. 3, p. 175. 



Introduction 17 

elements," while Luschan would even have it that the ad- 
vance of civilization is dependent upon this process of racial 
intermixture. He says : 18 

We all know that a certain admixture of blood has 
always been of great advantage to a nation. Eng- 
land, France, and Germany are equally distinguished 
for the great variety of their racial elements. In the 
case of Italy we know that in ancient times and at the 
Renaissance Northern "Barbarians" were the leaven 
in the great advance of art and civilisation ; and even 
Slavonic immigration has certainly not been without 
effect on this movement. The marvellous ancient civil- 
isation of Crete, again, seems to have been not quite 
autochthonous. We know also that the ancient Baby- 
lonian civilisation sprang from a mixture of two quite 
different national and racial elements, and we find a 
nearly homogeneous population in most parts of Rus- 
sia, and in the interior of China associated with a some- 
what low stage of evolution. 

Normally the intermixture of the diverse racial elements 
of a population, especially in a cosmopolitan situation, goes 
on without arousing comment or opposition. Except in a 
pathological situation, it does not become a social problem. 
Rather, it tends toward the elimination of any problem that 
the presence of the unassimilated alien element may have 
created. Any distinguishing racial marks which the parents 
may have borne are partly effaced in their mixed offspring. 
Superficially at least, the mixed-blood individuals are like 
all other members of the community in that they generally 
bear no obvious marks of their origin. 

It is not, then, the mere fact of a mixed ancestry that 
makes the mulatto a problem in the community and an ob- 

18 Felix von Luschan, "Anthropological View of Race," Inter-Racial 
Problems, pp. 22-3. 



L 



18 The Mulatto in the United States 






ject of sociological interest. But when the crossing of races 
produces an offspring readily distinguishable from both the 
parent races of which it is a mixture, the situation may be- 
come the basis for class distinctions ; the bi-racial ancestry 
of the individual may determine his status in the community. 

This would seem to be true especially in those cases where 
there already exists a condition of racial ill-will, of jealousy 
or hatred between the groups in contact; where the two 
groups are on different cultural levels, and where the dis- 
tinctive appearance of the lower 19 race gives a hold around 
which prejudice may crystallize. 20 

This race problem, that is, the problem of arriving at and 
maintaining mutually satisfactory working relations be- 
tween the members of two non-assimilable groups which oc- 
cupy the same territory, is primarily a matter of difference 
of physical appearance. 21 The color, or other racial marks, 
of one race may come to be a symbol of its inferior culture 
and so come to stand, in the thinking of the culturally supe- 
rior group, for poverty, disease, dirt, ignorance, and all the 
undesirable concomitants of a backward race. It is this 
that makes it impossible for individuals to escape the status 
of the lower group. Any person bearing the physical marks 
of the lower group is assumed to embody the traits that are 
supposed to be typical of the lower race. The individual 
cannot pass -in the opposite group on his merits as an indi- 

18 The terms "lower," "backward," etc., do not assume anything and do 
not prejudice anything biological or fundamental. They are purely 
cultural designations. A backward race is one backward in culture. 
"Race as such has nothing to do with the possession of civilization." 
Yet, "It would be silly to deny that in our time the highest civilization 
has been in the hands of the Caucasian, or white race." Ratzel, History 
of Mankind, Vol. I, p. 20. 

30 Mayo-Smith, Yale Review, Vol. 3, p. 185. 

* Compare, T. P. Bailey, Race Orthodoxy in the South, pp. 40 ff 



Introduction 19 

vidual, but must pass as a member of the opposite race. 

The half-castes who appear in such a situation are an 
easily distinguishable physical variety. This characteristic 
physical appearance classifies them ; it separates them from 
both groups and makes them alien in both. It makes it im- 
possible for them to escape the stigma which attaches itself 
to a tainted ancestry. The half-caste individual cannot, 
therefore, be a mere individual ; he is inevitably the represen- 
tative of a type. He is not merely a biological product ; he 
is a sociological phenomenon. 

Under such conditions, the half-castes tend to develop 
peculiar mental traits and attitudes which are not racial but 
are determined by the social situation in which they find 
themselves. To the extent that this takes place, the differ- 
ences that normally exist between individuals are suppressed 
and the mental and moral characteristics of the group ap- 
proach uniformity. In a word, they tend to form a distinct 
class or caste in the community and one based fundamentally 
on physical appearance. 

The problem of the mulatto, then, is not something unique 
and local: it is the problem of the mixed-blood wherever 
blood has been made the basis of caste. It seems desirable, 
therefore, before coming to the specific and detailed study 
of the mulatto in the United States and as a preliminary 
to that study, to pass in review the chief mixed-blood races 
that have appeared in other countries as a result of the con- 
tact of advanced and backward races and have constituted 
distinct types and distinct problems in other situations. It 
is actually to determine to what extent they have arisen 
under similar social situations, or what the situations are 
under which they have arisen ; to determine to what extent 
they have developed the same type of mind in different 
groups, or what the types of mind are if they differ ; and to 



SO The Mulatto in the United States 






see what are the reactions they have made to the different 
social and racial environments ; what accommodation they 
have made or caused to be made in the different social situ- 
ations in which they have been placed, that a summary of the 
origin and development, the psychological condition and the 
social status of the chief of these mixed-blood races is here 
given. Such a survey will furnish a necessary background 
to an understanding of the mulatto situation in the United 
States. It will serve to put in proper perspective what 
might otherwise appear to be a detached and an isolated 
phenomenon. 



CHAPTER II 



MIXED-BLOOD RACES 



In Primitive Times 

A MONG primitive peoples, a mixed-blood race as a 
/\ separate caste or class in the community seems no- 
where to have existed. Primitive peoples, especially those 
near enough together geographically to come into contact 
with each other, did not differ very widely. The various 
culture stages were not markedly different and the ethno- 
logical contrasts were not generally such as distinguish one 
group sharply from another. Where exogamy existed, it 
was between related groups. Moreover, where two races 
were on sufficiently friendly terms for intermarriage to take 
place between them, there seems to be little reason to sup- 
pose that the appearance of mixed-blood offspring would 
cause a social problem. Strange groups were mutually 
exclusive groups with a state of potential warfare always 
existing among them. Where there was intermixture it was 
the blending of a conquering with a conquered group to pro- 

| duce a single mixed-blood group. 1 

In numberless instances, the ruling classes were of an 
origin different from that of their subjects. But the con- 
quering and the conquered groups very soon became bound 

) together by ties of interest. 2 Pride of race was but a feeble 
'See Franz Oppenheimer, The State; Its History and Development 

I Viewed Sociologically. Translation by J. M. Gitterman, pp. 60 ff. 
2 See F. Stuart Chapin, Social Evolution, pp. 201 ff. 
Friedrich Ratzel, The History of Mankind, Vol. 2, pp. 165-66, 

21 



22 The Mulatto in the United States 

sentiment, if indeed, it existed at all. The prestige of the 
ruling class attracted the maidens of the conquered race, 
and the choicest of these became the auxiliary wives of the 
conquerors. But the mixed-bloods produced, did not form a 
separate caste. The primitive state nowhere possessed the 
cohesive strength to withstand for long the disorganizing 
force of a mixed-blood caste. It would lead quickly to a 
dissolution of the group though there seems no adequate 
ground for assuming that the incessant decay and reorgani- 
zation of primitive tribes was anywhere due to this cause. 
The mixed-bloods were seldom an outstanding physical type. 
Their appearance in the situation tended to bind yet more 
intimately together the conquerors and their subjects. 
Their production was the first step toward a new racial 
homogeneity. 3 

In the ancient world, contacts seem nowhere to have re- 
sulted in the production of a mixed-blood race with a dis- 
tinct social and psychological status. 4 The Phoenicians, 
interested above all else in material prosperity, sacrificed 
every national and racial trait that interfered with their 
commercial prosperity. Their colonies very soon lost their 
national character through a fusing with their ethnic en- 
vironment. 5 The Greeks with a stronger sense of nationality 
than the Phoenicians, better maintained their national iden- 
tity. Their colonists felt strongly the distinctions between 
themselves and the barbarians, and so kept themselves free 
from any large-scale miscegenation with the natives. "The 

3 In Africa there are, in general, two regions of pure Negro and two 
regions of Caucasian-Negro mixed-blood races. See Ratzel, The His- 
tory of Mankind, Vol. 2, pp. 215 ff., 257. A map showing the mixed- 
blood races of North and East Africa is given in Vol. 2, pp. 336-37. 

4 See G. Elliot Smith, "The Influence of Racial Admixture in Egypt," 
Eugenics Review, Vol. 7, pp. 163-83. 

5 A. G. Keller, Colonization, p. 35. 



Mixed-Blood Races 23 

barbarians became Greek less through contact with Greek 
settlements than through the dissemination of the Greek 
tongue and culture — they became Greek by adoption, not 
by the infusion of Greek blood." 6 The Romans mixed, no 
doubt, with their subject peoples, but there was on the part 
of these peoples, no very clearly defined sentiment of race 
diversity. The Romans were not looked upon as enemies 
of the race. There was no sentiment of nationality ; as for 
the state, it simply did not exist. All was disorder and 
continual struggle between petty groups. There existed no 
very marked outstanding external differences that would 
serve as a basis for race separation and discrimination. 7 
Keller 8 speaking of the Gauls remarks upon "the absence 
of wide racial diversity in these ancient times." He adds: 9 

". . . The superiorities of Roman ideas and systems 
were self-evident because the grades of civilization 
were not so distant one from another as to prevent 
easy passage from the lower to the higher. This was 
particularly noteworthy in respect to Gaul, but not 
untrue in the case of other lands." 

In Spain 

In Spain there has always been much intermixture of the 
blood of different ethnic stocks but no purely racial problem 
or distinctive half-caste population. The Phoenicians fused 
with the Iberians who were already modified by intermixture 

•Ibid., p. 48. 

7 ". . . The contrast between the culture represented by the modern 
white and that of primitive man is far more fundamental than that 
between the ancients and the peoples with whom they came in contact. 
. . ." Franz Boaz, The Mind of Primitive Man, p. 12. 

8 Colonization, p. 59. 

*Ibid., pp. 59-60. 



24 The Mulatto in the United States 






with the Celts. 10 Following the Phoenicians, the peninsula 
was overrun successively by the Carthaginians, the Romans, 
the Visigoths, the Vandals and finally by the Arabs and the 
Moors. 11 In addition to these there was a large infusion of 
Jewish blood and, with the Moors, came some admixture of 
the Negroid. 12 In spite, however, of this extensive mixing 
of blood, there was little alteration in the original type. 13 
Most of the invaders, like the original stock, were dolichoce- 
phalic, short of stature and dark of skin and hair and e3 r es. 
The stages of culture were not widely contrasted. Class 
distinction between noble and not-noble, between town and 
countryman were everywhere rigidly drawn. There was 
little to create a permanent racial problem and there was 
no emergence of a half-caste group. The persecution of 
the Moris coes after the fall of the Moorish Empire was not 
primarily, nor even largely, racial. During the flourishing 
period of the Moorish Empire, the line of demarcation be- 
tween the races was but faintly drawn. 14 "Openly, at least, 
they did not consider each other as enemies." 15 Intermar- 
riages were frequent especially those of Spanish women 16 
with the men of the dominant group. Intermarriage was, 
however, contrary to the policy of Islam and such alliances 






10 Appleton's Encyclopedia: Spain. 

11 New International Encyclopaedia: Spain. 

12 



Sir Harry H. Johnston, "The World-Position of the Negro and 
Negroid," Inter-Racial Problems, p. 330. The Moors of course are mem- 
bers of the white race though much mixed. They have "more Arab 
than Berber blood." Encyclopaedia Britannica: Moors. 

18 Neio International Encyclopaedia: Spain. 

14 S. P. Scott, History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, Vol. 3, p. 197. 

18 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 197. 

16 ". . . The harems of the Moslems were filled with Christian maidens 
who had, without hesitancy or compensation, renounced the faith of their 
fathers." Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 200. 



Mixed-Blood Races 25 

were discouraged 17 although no stigma attached to either 
party of such union. It was, however, this attitude on the 
part of the Arabs that was chiefly responsible in prevent- 
ing a complete amalgamation of the races. With the de- 
cline of the Moorish Empire and more especially with the 
rise of the Castilian power in Spain, an antipathy grew up 
between the races. The latent or repressed feeling gradu- 
ally grew into an open hostility. The prejudice was sedu- 
lously nourished until the Spanish came to consider the 
Moors as their hereditary 18 and implacable enemy. They 
asserted the superiority of their race and considered their 
enemies as barbarians in spite of the wide and obvious supe- 
riority of the latter in knowledge and culture. The smallest 
drop of Moorish blood became a taint that nothing could" 
remove. 19 But behind this hostile attitude, was the Church 
and the impoverished condition of the national treasury. In 
the sixteenth century, Spain subordinated everything to the 
Church ; 20 she sacrificed everything to the idea of religious 
unity. Moreover, the Moriscoes were industrious and fru- 
gal ; they were prosperous and wealthy. The Castilian sub- 
sisted by rapine. The wealth of the Moriscoes attracted the 
cupidity of the authorities. 21 Like the Jews of a previous 
period, their wealth brought upon them the suspicion of 
heresy. 22 The institution of the Inquisition was put into 
operation against the inoffensive and prosperous class, 2; 

"Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 212. 
"Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 199. 

19 "A taint of Moorish blood was sufficient to prevent the holding of 
any public office, even in the smallest municipality." Chambers' Ency- 
clopaedia: Spain. See, also, Scott, History of the Moorish Empire, Vol. 
3, p. 224. 

20 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 304. 
81 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 245. 
22 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 226. 
28 Ibid., Vol. 3, p. 260. 



26 The Mulatto in the United States 

and the persecution ended only with their final expulsion. 
The persecution, however, was a religious festival; it was 
only incidentally racial. 

The Etirasians 

The mixture of races is by no means a modern phenome- 
non, but it is only within recent centuries that the half- 
breed appears as a psychological type and as a social prob- 
lem. Keller, placing the emphasis on the more tolerant 
attitude of the culture races and the absence of wide cultural 
or ethnical differences of the races in contact, summarizes 
the situation as follows : 24 

For similar reasons the "native policy" of ancient 
times was constructed to subserve the purposes of ex- 
change, or was directed simply toward the maintenance 
of such subordination and order as a wider administra- 
tive experience had proved to be socially beneficial, if 
not indispensable. There was no idea of "culture-mis- 
sion" or the like, and consequently no dogma, ... of 
"assimilation." No moral or religious crusades were 
carried on through the colonies ; diversity of customs 
and morals was regarded as natural and a matter of 
course, — though both customs and religions were na- 
tionally less differentiated than they have come to be 
in the eyes of later ages. The predominant commer- 
cial motive, and the imperial policy as well, counseled 
respect for the social forms of an alien people; . . . 
between the races that were brought into contact, es- 
pecially around the borders of the Mediterranean, there 
existed few contrasts of any significance. The like was 
true in the case of the Chinese and their ethnic envi- 
ronment. There was no obvious ethnological differ- 
ences such as distinguish one race sharply from an- 
other, and the various stages of culture were separated 
24 Colonization, pp. 76-77. 



Mixed-Blood Races 87 

by no impassable or discouraging chasms. . . . Even 
slavery was an institution totally different from that 
with which later ages have made us familiar: there was 
no "color-line"; the system was one of "domestic sla- 
very" in the main; and the passage from freedom to 
servitude was easy. . . . Hence that eternally vex- 
atious and unsolved question of the treatment of a 
"lower race" was but faintly represented. . . . [With 
these colonies] instead of native wars and annihilation, 
an auspicious large-scale miscegenation, mainly of 
closely allied races, took place, ... no such barriers 
to intermarriage existed as appeared in later times, 
when racial distinctions were more marked. . . . 

It was the mass meeting of the cultured and primitive 
peoples, brought about as a result of the period of the dis- 
coveries, that gave rise to the mixed-blood races with a 
status different in some respects from that of either of the 
parent races ; and so gave rise, in some cases at least, to 
special social and racial problems. 

Chief among these mixed-blood races are the "Eurasians," 
a mixture of Hindu and European living in the port cities 
of India ; the mixed-blood race of Eskimo-Dane living off 
the West Coast of Greenland; the so-called "coloured peo- 
ples" of South Africa, a mixed-blood race of complicated 
ancestry ; the metis of Brazil, a mixture of Portuguese with 
Amerindian and Negro ; the mestizo, a mixture with varying 
proportions of Spanish and Indian blood found in most 
parts of South and Central America ; the Spanish mulatto 
in Cuba and Porto Rico ; the "coloured people" and "whites 
by law" in Jamaica ; the Spanish mestizo and the Chinese 
mestizo in the Philippines; and the mulatto in the United 
States. In lesser numbers, are the English-Eskimo mix- 
tures on the Newfoundland Coast ; the European and Ori- 
ental mixtures in the port cities of China and Japan; half- 



28 The Mulatto in the United States 

caste Arabs in East Central Africa; various mixtures of 
Indian-White, Indian-Negro and Indian-Negro-White in 
the United States; French-Indian mixtures in Canada; and 
a great variety of other mixtures in various regions but in 
lesser numbers or forming less acute problems. 

The Eurasians or Indo-Europeans are a people of mixed 
European and Asiatic blood born and raised in Asia. This 
population had its origin in the miscegenation of Hindu 
women with the early Portuguese traders and resident Por- 
tuguese. There was never any considerable immigration of 
Portuguese women into India and illicit relations with the 
native women were common. 25 The Portuguese, accustomed 
to such mixed unions in their home country, had no racial 
repugnance to overcome. 26 The policy was fostered by the 
Portuguese governors ; Albuquerque himself was the father 
of a mulatto son. 27 But the effort to build up a half-caste 
group was only partially successful. The mongrel type, in 
the absence of a regular infusion of Portuguese blood, failed 
to hold its own. It has now pretty thoroughly reverted to 
the native type. 28 Perhaps a half million of the population 
show traces of this early hybridization, but they are dis- 
tinguishable from the natives mainty by virtue of a distinc- 
tive dress. 29 

With the coming of the English into India, there was a 
new intermixture of European and Indian blood. Concubin- 

28 Keller, Colonization, p. 122. 

*lbid., p. 104. 

27 Ibid., p. 122. 

28 ". . . The Portuguese have left behind a monument of their Indiar 
dominion in a very numerous race of half-breeds, . . . They enter largel) 
into domestic service and in Bombay all the best cooks and waiters an 
of Portuguese extraction. Nor will you find, in the whole of India, anj 
better servants than these, . . ." Herbert Compton, Indian Life in Tom 
and Country, pp. 208-10. 

w £lisee Reclus, Asia, Vol. 3, pp. 389-90. 



Mixed-Blood Races 29 

age with the native women was the usual and manly thing. 30 
The new body of half-breeds number in all somewhat over 
one hundred thousand and are confined almost exclusively 
to the large port cities where the foreign trade of India is 
largely concentrated. 31 It is, for the most part, these Eng- 
lish Hindu hybrids alone who are responsible for the so- 
called Eurasian question. 

Physically the Eurasians are slight and weak. 32 Their 
personal appearance is subject to the greatest variations. 
In skin color, for example, they are often darker even than 
the Asiatic parent. 33 They are naturally indolent and will 
enter into no employment requiring exertion or labor. This 
lack of energy is correlated with an incapacity for organiza- 
tion. 34 They will not assume burdensome responsibilities, 
but they make passable clerks where only routine labor is 
required. 

The native woman is inordinately proud of her half-caste 
offspring. In infancy he is nursed, and in youth pampered 
by his native servants upon whom he is dependent. "As a 
consequence, all the stronger traits of manhood are feebly 

80 Recently the anti-nauteh movement has resulted in forcing this rela- 
tionship into the dark. "Concubinage, which was esteemed as rather a 
manly fashion twenty years ago, has largely disappeared among the more 
enlightened classes; and even among the less enlightened it is regarded 
as a thing rather to be ashamed than to be proud of." "The Indian 
Social Reformer." Quoted by J. P. Jones, 'Conditions in India," Jour- 
nal of Race Development, Vol. 2, p. 201. 

"Madras 26,000; Bengal 20,000; Burma, Bombay and the United 
Provinces 8,000 to 11,000; total 100,451. This is an increase of 15 per 
cent since 1901. The increase seems partly due to "the growing ten- 
dency amongst certain classes of Indian Christians to pass themselves 
off as Anglo-Indians." Census of India 1911, Vol. 1, Part 1, p. 140. 

"Mary Helen Lee, The Eurasian: A Social Problem, p. 13. See, also, 
Ellsworth Huntington, "Geographical Environment and Japanese Char- 
acter," Journal of Race Development, Vol. 2, pp. 158-59. 

" Compton, Indian Life, p. 208. 

"Lee, The Eurasian, pp. 11, 13. 



30 The Mulatto in the United States 

developed in him." 35 In manhood he is wily, untrustworthy 3a 
and untruthful. 37 Pie is lacking in independence and is for- 
ever begging for special favors. Yet supersensitiveness is 
a characteristic of the whole Eurasian community. They 
recklessly "resign from any and every post when, for some 
reason or without reason, their feelings are hurt." 38 The 
girls, in some cases at least, are sold into prostitution. 39 The 
men are employed for the most part by the government in 
subordinate clerical positions. 

Socially the Eurasians are outcaste. They are despised 
by the ruling whites and hated by the natives. 40 In the 
words of one of their class : "To the European we are half- 
caste, among ourselves we are no caste, and to the Indians 
we are outcaste." 41 They are extremely sensitive on tht 
point of color. 42 They object to the term nigger; it is ever, 
necessary to avoid the term Eurasian in their presence. 42 ' 

"Lee, The Eurasian, pp. 12, 17. See, also, Ethel Hunter, The Y.W.C.A 
in India, Burma and Ceylon, 1911. 



88 



"Industrially a Christian native is preferred to an Eurasian, for ht 
is more trustworthy." Lee, The Eurasian, p. 10. 

» T Reclus, Asia, Vol. 3, pp. 389-90. 

a8 "They frequently appeal to ministers especially and to all charitablj 
disposed people. Lord Curzon . . . gave their memorials special atten 
tion, and as a result delivered a reply of the most searching kind anc 
urged the people of the community to carve out something worthy them 
selves, instead of being continually memoralizing for special favors 
and refused to aid in the special class regulations. The delegates retired 
'thanking His Excellency for his sarcastic remarks.' " J. Smith, Te\ 
Years in Burma, p. 117. 

89 See J. S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress, Vol. 2 
p. 273. 

«°Reclus, Asia, Vol. 3, pp. 389-90. 

41 Quoted by Lee, The Eurasian, p. 10. 

" "Especially if very dark the Eurasian is overmuch pained that he ha 
not a white skin." Ibid., p. 13. 

"Catering to this idiosyncrasy the British government has change< 
their official designation to "Indo-Europeans." 



Mixed-Blood Races 31 

They wish to be called Europeans. 44 

They have no part in the racial situation. They aspire 
to be English, but they do nothing to consolidate British 
rule, as neither the Indian nor the white man considers them 
as Englishmen. They have equally little standing with the 
[ndian. They stand between two civilizations but are a part 
[>f neither. They are miserable, helpless, despised and 
aeglected. 

The Eskimos 

In Greenland, the half-breed Eskimos date their origin 
from the establishment of the Danish missionary settlements 
an the West Coast in 1721. The European interest always 
has been trade and missions. The number of Scandinavians 
has at no time been large, and the colony is composed al- 
most exclusively of men. In the early days, it was used 
as a penal colony, and from time to time, there was a com- 
pulsory immigration of orphan boys to recruit the teaching 
force and the inferior clergy. The present white population 
is about two hundred and never has exceeded that number 
very greatly. At first there were no white women in the 
colony; even now the number is very small. The relations 
between the races always have been friendly in spite of the 
missionary interference with the native customs, and in spite 
of the feeling of superiority of the Europeans over the 
natives. 

Miscegenation went on from the first and so extensively 
that the native Eskimo is practically extinct in the territory 



44 u 



. . . Some special enquiries made in certain towns . . . showed 
three-tenths of the persons returned as Europeans were in reality Anglo- 
Indians." "The number of Eurasians who returned themselves as Euro- 
peans is perhaps somewhat less than at former censuses owing to the 
use of the term 'Anglo-Indian.' . . ." Census of India 1911, Vol. 1, 
Part 1, pp. 139, 140. 



32 The Mulatto in the United States 






under the influence of European civilization. A hundred 
years after the settlement, the half-breeds composed four- 
teen per cent of the population. In 1885 the proportion 
had increased to thirty per cent. At present the intermix- 
ture has gone so far that the various mixed types are no 
longer distinguishable but blend into one another in almost 
imperceptible degrees from the pure Dane, on the one ex- 
treme, to the pure Eskimo, on the other. This intermix- 
ture, for the most part, has been extra-matrimonial, though 

;re have been some unions of a semi-regular sort. The 
lid interference of the missionaries with the fundamental 
.lative customs brought about a disorganization of the na- 
tive habits which, in the presence of their severe climate, 
proved destructive to the native population. In the pres- 
ence of a declining pure-blood population, the Danish gov- 
ernment has favored the policy of intermixture and requires 
the Danish official on his return to Denmark on pension to 
leave his native wife and children in the colony. 45 

In comparison with the native Eskimo the mixed-bloods 
are in reality superior men. 46 They are an improvement, 
especially in physical appearance, over the native stock. 47 
Socially the status of the mixed-blood man is superior to 
that of the native, but the social distinctions are not so much 
dependent upon the presence or absence of white intermix- 
ture as they are upon the amount of that intermixture. 
"The native women prefer the worst Dane to the best Green- 
lander, and the half-breeds are the more eligible for their 

45 At present there are from thirty to forty Danes so married to 
native women. Encyclopaedia Britannica: Greenland. 

49 Handbook of the American Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology, 
Bull. 30, Part 1, p. 913. 

47 Keller, however, says : "The mongrels resulting from these mixed 
unions appear to form no very great improvement on the native stock.'* 
Colonization, p. 515. 



Mixed-Blood Races 38 

train of white blood ; illicit relations with white men are 
ather a glory than a disgrace." 48 The young native woman, 
ays Nansen, "positively glories" in illicit relations with 
fhite men and gains a considerable prestige among her fe- 
lale friends as a result of having been so honored. 49 

In Spanish America 

From the first coming of the Portuguese to Brazil, there 
ras a wholesale miscegenation with the Indian women. The 
Ytestizo group soon became a numerically important ele- 
ment in the population. Later, there were introduced large 
lumbers of black slaves from the West Coast of Africa. 
Jnions between the Portuguese and the black women began 
nth the first introduction of the Negroes. As a result, the 
nulattoes presently appeared as a second mixed-blood race 
n the population. Moreover, the Negroes mixed readily 
nth the Indians, giving rise to a race of Negro-Indian hy- 
>rids — the zambos. There were thus six distinct racial 
groups in the population each with a clearly defined status. 
Crosses between these various hybrids and between the hy- 
>rids and the pure races took place with even more readi- 
less than between the pure stocks. The mixed-blood groups 
gradually blended into one another to form a single mixed- 
>lood race, the relative ethnic composition of which is en- 
irely indeterminable. 

It was this triangular mixture in unknown proportions 
f the blood of Portuguese, Indian, and Negro that produced 
he so-called metis, 50 who compose somewhat above one-third 

I "Ibid., p. 515. 

49 F. Nansen, Eskimo Life, pp. 12, 20, 163-5. See, also, A. N. Gil- 
ertson, Some Ethical Phases of Eskimo Culture, p. 73. He quotes 
rebitsch as expressing an opposite opinion. 

50 The metis differ from the mestizos of other parts of South America 



34 The Mulatto in the United States 

of the present population of Brazil. 51 Of the fifteen million 
whites, a considerable number are so by law rather than be- 
cause of an entire absence of Indian or Negro blood. 52 

Biologically the metis are an unstable type. 53 Their phys- 
ical traits vary with each new crossing sometimes toward 
one and sometimes toward the other parent though there is 
a general tendency toward the white type. 54 They are not 
muscular, and have little power to resist disease. 

Tuberculosis is common among them. 55 Some of the 
women are graceful and well proportioned, but they arc 

principally in that there is a considerable amount of Negro blood in 
their ethnic composition. It would seem to be an error, however, to sa* 
that this term is a synonym for mulatto. See W. E. B. DuBois, Thi 
Negro, p. 166. 

" P. F. Martin, Through Five Republics of South America, p. 15£ 
gives the population as follows: 

15,000,000 total 

3,500,000 Negroes 

6,000,000 mixed 

1,300,000 Indians 

900,000 Portuguese 

520,000 Germans 

1,800,000 Italians 

James Bryce, South America; Observations and Impressions, pp. 433 
34, 564-65, estimates the Negro and Negro mixture to be about 8,000,00< 
or two-fifths of the total population. The number of zambos he put; 
at 300,000. 

M Martin, Through Five Republics, p. 155. Bryce, South America 
pp. 564-65. 

■""Their physical characteristics are not fixed." Jean Baptiste d 
Lacerda, "The Metis, or Half-breeds, of Brazil," Inter-Racial Problem 
p. 378. 

""Continuous infusions of Portuguese blood, due to an immigra 
tion . . . have gradually overcome the native strain of what was i. 
largely mongrel population, and a fortunate reversion toward the mor 
developed ethnic component, with its happier adaptation to modern con 
ditions, has ensued." Keller, Colonization, p. 164. 

"Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 380. 



Mixed-Blood Races 35 

in no sense a beautiful people. In color they vary from 
i dark yellow to a dull white. Their hair is usually dark 
and nearly always curly. Their eyes are chestnut, brown, 
Dr greenish. Their lips are thick. Their teeth are irregu- 
lar, though less protruding than the Negroes'. On the whole 
they seem to be an improvement upon both the Negro and 
the Indian elements of their ancestry, 56 though the evidence 
on this point is by no means uniform. 57 As agricultural 
laborers, they are inferior to the blacks and they show no 
capacity for commercial or industrial life. 58 Lacerda 59 
asserts that they are ostentatious, unpractical, talkative, 
intemperate, and lacking in veracity and loyalty but admits 
that they are intelligent, have some literary ability and show 
great cleverness as politicians. 

In Brazil the metis form a sort of middle-class between the 
white aristocracy, on the one hand, and the Negro and the 
Indian, on the other. The Indians are passive and, so far 
as political affairs are concerned, are outside the nation. 
The black Negroes are inferior in education 60 and enter- 



88 ". . . if these half-breeds are not able to compete in other quali- 
ties with the stronger races of the Aryan stock, ... it is none the less 
certain that we cannot place the metis at the level of the really inferior 
races. They are physically and intellectually well above the level of the 
blacks, who were an ethnical element in their production." Ibid., p. 
381. 

5T "In Brazil ... his [the Indian's] successor is a decidedly inferior 
being. . . ." Martin, Through Five Republics, p. 1. 

68 Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 380. 

89 Ibid., p. 380. Compare the Chileans. E. A. Ross, South of Panama, 
pp. 113, 213-14, 219, 221. 

80 Eighty per cent of the total population is illiterate. The ratio 
among the blacks is far higher. See Martin, Through Five Republics, 
p. 155. Of recent attempts to provide education adapted to the needs 
of the situation, see H. E. Everly, "Vocational Education in Brazil," 
Manual Training Magazine, June, 1915. 



36 The Mulatto in the United States 

prise to the Negro of the Southern States of America. 81 
They take life very easy, exerting themselves just sufficiently 
to provide the few necessities of life in a tropical climate. 62 
The whites are the ruling class, 63 though for political and 
social purposes, the upper grade of the metis and the whites 
are practically one class. 

At the founding of the republic, the numerical preponder- 
ance of the mixed-blood race enabled them to secure an equal 
share in the governmental affairs of the country. Many of 
them secured political offices, and they exert a considerable 
influence on the government of the country. 64 Many of the 
mixed-blood race are men of property 65 and are influential 
in the affairs of the community. 

In social affairs, the color line between the whites and the 
mixed-blood race is neither hard nor fast. 66 Many of the 
so-called whites are tinged with Negro or Indian blood. 67 
Intermarriage is forbidden neither by law nor by custom, 
and mixed unions are not uncommon. To the Portuguese, 
the idea of personal contact with an Indian or a Negro 
excites little feeling of physical repulsion. The aristocracy 
here, as elsewhere in South America, are pure white; and 
marriages between them and the pure Indians or Negroes do 

61 Bryce, South America, pp. 479-80. 

62 Ibid., pp. 404-05. 

63 Ibid., p. 565. 

w Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, pp. 381-82. 

85 Not so many as is sometimes asserted. "Bahia . . . has a population 
of 250,000 and is rapidly growing. Most of the population are real 
Negroes. . . . The city is so prosperous that there are 10,000 Negroes 
who are millionaires. . . ." The Chicago Defender, A Negro Paper, 
1-15-1916. 

88 It seems to be the observation of this fact that has led certain super- 
ficial observers to announce an entire absence of color prejudice in 
Brazil. See The Chicago Defender, 12-11-1915, 1-22-1916. 

87 Bryce, South America, p. 565. 



I 



Mixed-Blood Races 

not occur. 68 "The Brazilian lower class intermarries freely 
with the black people; the Brazilian middle class 69 inter- 
marries with the mulattoes and the quadroons." 70 

The color line — so far as there is a color line — is drawn 
with the Negro and the Indian on the one side and the white 
man and the metis on the other. 71 The mixed-blood man is 
as contemptuous of the native and the Negro, as is the white 
man. 72 The aspiration of the half-breed is to be like the 
white man. 73 He calls himself white, consciously models him- 
self on the white man, tries to think and act as a white man 
and, if possessed of education and property, is so treated. 74 
He is free to intermarry with the whites and his ambition 
is to do so. With each such crossing, the offspring approx- 
imate more and more to the pure white type. Aside from 
reversions, they are sometimes able to pass as white in their 
Portuguese community by the third generation. Lacerda 75 
sums up the racial situation in these words : 



f 



The mulatto himself endeavours, by marriage, to 
bring back his descendants to the pure white type. 

68 See Theodore Roosevelt, "Brazil and the Negro," Outlook, Vol. 106, 
pp. 409-11. 

69 Largely mixed. Officially white. See Bryce, South America, p. 492; 
South American Year Book, 1915, p. 216. 

70 Bryce, South America, pp. 479-80. Bryce counts as white all indi- 
viduals having three-fourths or more white blood. 

71 In southern Brazil in the expanding German, Swiss and white Por- 
tuguese settlements the color line is drawn separating the whites from 
the colored and the mixed. See Sir Harry H. Johnston, The Negro in 
the New World. See, also, D. P. Kidder and J. C. Fletcher, Brazil 
and the Brazilians, pp. 132-33. 

" Bryce, South America, p. 565. 

7a Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 382. Bryce, South America, pp. 
460-6T. 

"The same thing is theoretically true of the Indian and the Negro. 
See Roosevelt, The Outlook, Vol. 106, pp. 409-11. 

75 Inter-Racial Problems, p. 382. 



38 The Mulatto in the United States 






Children of metis have been found, in the third genera- 
tion, to present all the physical characters of the white 
race, although some of them retain a few traces of 
their black ancestry through the influence of atavism. 
The influence of sexual selection, however, tends to neu- 
tralise that of atavism, and removes from the descend- 
ants of the metis all the characteristic features of the 
black race. In virtue of this process of ethnic reduc- 
tion, it is logical to expect that in the course of another 
century the metis will have disappeared from Brazil. 
This will coincide with the parallel extinction of the 
black race in our midst. When slavery was abolished, 
the black, left to himself, began to abandon the cen- 
tres of civilisation. Exposed to all kinds of destruc- 
tive agencies, and without sufficient resources to main- 
tain themselves, the negroes are scattered over the 
thinly populated districts, and tend to disappear from 
our territory. 

Aside from Brazil, most of Central and South America 
was colonized by the Spanish. The early immigration was 
of a poor quality, being composed chiefly of clergy and of 
adventurers who came with an intention of acquiring a com- 
petence if possible and then returning to Spain. Another 
large group of immigrants were convicts, sentenced to death 
or mutilation, whose sentences were commuted on condition 
that they emigrate to the colonies. The objects of the early 
colonists were adventure and trade rather than settlement. 76 
Consequently there were few women of good character 
though, unlike the Portuguese, the Spanish government 
never foisted their objectionable women upon the colonists. 
There was, therefore, a dearth of Spanish women either mar- 
ried or marriageable. 

The Spanish interest was centered in the mines and for 



78 



See James Bryce, "Migrations of the Races of Men," Contemporary 
Review, Vol. 62, p. 134. 



Mixed-Blood Races 39 

three centuries the plantations and agriculture in general 
was a failure in Spanish America. 77 The healthful and 
wealth-producing regions of the tropics were the interior 
highlands, and it was there alone that a considerable popu- 
lation grew up. But even there, it was made up mostly of 
useless individuals, adventurers, and functionaries but not 
of workers, as is shown by the fact that it was almost ex- 
clusively a town population. 

The Indians and the Spanish were not so temperamentally 
constituted as to be able to come to any mutually satisfac- 
tory working relations. They never reached anything re- 
motely approaching kindly feeling and unity of purpose. 
The Indians were not adapted to slavery; the Spanish had 
an exaggerated idea of their own superiority. The situ- 
ation worked itself out on the single and simple principle of 
relative power. 78 The attitude of the Spanish was ruthless 
and savage. They seized the public and private wealth of 
the natives, appropriated their women, and finally levied 
upon their vital force. To develop the mines, they needed a 
large labor supply ; to get the labor supply, they drove the 
natives in crowds to the mountains, where the unwonted labor 
and the scanty nourishment combined with the effects of the 
climatic change and the broken family life, to bring about 
a rapid decline in the population. 79 To supply the place of 
the decreasing native labor, African slaves were introduced 
and grew rapidly in numbers. 80 

Intermixture with the natives began with the first landing 
of the Spanish explorers on American soil. 81 and so exten- 

77 Keller, Colonization, p. 223. 
18 Ibid., p. 259. 

79 Ibid., pp. 256 ff . 

80 Ibid., pp. 280-82. 

81 Syphilis, which spread like a plague over the whole of Europe during 
the sixteenth century, dates its origin as a disease of civilized man from 



40 The Mulatto in the United States 

sive was this mixture of races that it has been characterized 
as the "prime phenomenon in the contact of races in Spanish 
America." 82 After the introduction of the Negro, there 
grew up several new varieties of half-breeds and each of the 
races and half-races came to have a more or less clearly 
and definitely defined status in the community life. 

The main constituents, taken as ethnic and social types, 
were six in number. 83 The Peninsular Spaniards, those from 
Europe, were of course the aristocracy ; next in order came 
the white Creoles, descendants of Europeans settled in Amer- 
ica ; a third class was the mestizos, mongrels resulting from 
the association of Europeans with the native women ; a little 
later in time and lower in status, came the mulattoes ; next 
in the social rank came the Negroes, and last of all, the 
natives. 

Between these main groups were many other mixtures 
approximating one or the other of the main groups, or form- 
ing separate groups apart. The mestizos multiplied with 
such rapidity that they came to form and still form a very 
considerable portion of the population of Spanish America. 

The association of these various ethnic groups was marked 
by hatred, bitterness and strife. 84 The Spanish officials held 

the return of the first Columbian expedition from America. It was the 
red man's one contribution to civilization. See Iwan Bloch, The Sexual 
Life of Our Time, M. Eden Paul's Translation, pp. 351-56. 

83 Keller, Colonization, p. 295. 

88 Perhaps seven or even more. See H. C. Morris, The History of 
Colonization, Vol. 1, pp. 252-53. 

84 "The different shades were classified with minute attention, not only 
by the force of custom but also by the law. When there was only a sixth 
of negro or Indian blood in the veins of a colonist, the law granted him 
the title of white: que se tenga por bianco. Each caste was full of 
envy for those above and of contempt for those below." Leroy-Beau- 
lieu, i, II; cf. Roscher, The Spanish Colonial System, pp. 149-50. Keller, 
Colonization, p. 220, f. n. 



lviwucu-Diuuu xiuces ~x l 



in contempt the Creoles and, especially, the mestizos who 
formed the industrial elements of the Colonies.^ The mixed- 
blood races felt superior to the native and the Negro stock 
from which they had sprung. 85 The Negroes had an im- 
placable hatred for the natives and, secure in their greater 
physical strength and the approval of their masters, mis- 
treated the natives at every opportunity. The natives in 
their pitiable condition hated all their oppressors in varying 
degrees. 

Time and further mixed breeding reduced the various mon- 
grel types to a relative uniformity in physical appearance 
and mental characteristics. Immigration being restricted 
for a long time, the number of incoming Spaniards was small 
and this, together with the scarcity of Spanish women, 
kept the natural increase of the white race very limited. 
Consequently the native element was the determining factor 
in the biological situation. The very fact of relative num- 
bers made it inevitable that the mixed-blood race should tend 
toward the Indian type. The caste feeling was not suffi- 
cient to preserve them from this fate and, in spite of a larger 
later immigration from Europe, the reversion has partly 

taken place. 86 

88 "The aversion between mulattoes and negroes was as great as that 
between whites and negroes. The civil position of each class depended 
mainly and naturally upon the greater or less whiteness of their com- 
plexion. 'Todo bianco es caballero.'" Roscher, The Spanish Colonial 
System, p. 21. Keller, Colonization, p. 220 f. n. 

86 Earl Finch states that it is the American Indian who declines in 
the process of miscegenation of the Negroes, Spanish, Portuguese and 
Indians. See "The Effects of Racial Miscegenation," Inter-Racial Prob- 
lems, p. 109. This is true in the sense that the introduction of foreign 
blood into a population tends to diffuse in a culturally downward direc- 
tion, and the lower strata of the population tend to become contaminated 
by traces of it. But the decline in numbers of a pure-blood native race 
is due to disease and the failure or inability of the primitive folk to ac- 
commodate themselves to civilized habits and manners of life. In an 



» 



42 77*£ Mulatto in the United States 

Such is the racial background for the latter day situation 
in the various Spanish-American Republics. 

There are no general censuses of the Spanish-American 
countries, and consequently no accurate numerical knowl- 
edge of the various racial groups in the different republics. 
Bryce estimates the total population at 45,000,000, of whom 
approximately one-fifth are pure Indians, one-third mestizos, 
one-third white with much Indian blood and the remainder 
Negroes, mulattoes and zambos. 81 Of the 15,000,000 whites, 
more than half are in the Republics of Argentine and Uru- 
guay, which republics contain no native or Negro elements, 88 
and in the southern part of Brazil which is also free from the 
colored races. The Negroes and their various intermixtures 
with the white and Indian races are chiefly in northern and 
eastern Brazil, though there are a goodly number in Guinea 
and some in Venezuela. 8!> In insignificant numbers, they are 
found in the cities of the other South American countries. 
The population of Paraguay is nearly all Indian: the white 
and mixed elements are so small as to be negligible. Colom- 
bia is approximately fifty per cent so-called white. The 

inter-racial situation in which there is intermarriage between the races 
the result is determined exclusively by the relative members of the two 
groups. In a caste situation, Finch is right: there the lower groups 
receive a continual admixture of blood from the castes above them while 
the superior caste receives no blood from the inferior groups. 

87 



Whites 


15,000,000 


Whites 


15,000,000 


Indians 


8,000,000 


Indians 


8,000,000 


Negroes 


3,000,000 


Negroes 


3,000,000 


Mestizos 


13,000,000 


Mixed 


19,000,000 


Mulattoes 


5,700,000 






Zambos 


300,000 







South America, pp. 564-65. 

88 There is a substratum of Indian mestizos in North Argentine but no 
country in the western hemisphere with the single exception of Canada is 
so nearly racially white. See E. A. Ross, South of Panama, pp. 119-20. 

89 White 10 per cent; mestizo 70 per cent; Indian and Negro 20 per 
cent. South American Year Book, 1915, p. 742. 



Mixed-Blood Races 43 

actual whites form a much smaller per cent. 90 Equador is 
approximately ten per cent white. 91 Peru has ten per cent 
or less of white and near-white, thirty-five per cent mixed, 
and fifty-five per cent Indian. 92 Bolivia has a somewhat 
larger percentage of pure Indian stock. 93 Chile has a small 
white aristocracy and a very few Indians ; the population 
is nearly all mixed though they claim to be white and the 
tendency is to so classify them. 94 The Central American 
states are about fifteen per cent white or what passes for 
white in the Spanish-American states. 95 The Mexican cen- 
sus of 1900 returned nineteen per cent of the total popula- 
tion as "white or nearly white," forty-three per cent as 
Indian and white intermixture and thirty-eight per cent as 
Indian out of a total population of 13,607,259. 96 

90 Ibid., 1915, p. 503. 

91 Ibid., p. 562. 

62 Ibid., p. 638. The Lima Geographical Society, 1896, estimated the 
population of Peru as white 20 per cent, Indian 57 per cent and mixed 
23 per cent. Quoted by P. F. Martin, Peru of the Twentieth Century, 
p. 42. Biyce estimates that the pure whites of Peru do not number as 
much as 5 per cent. See South America, p. 66. Ross, South of Panama, 
pp. 39-40, 260, gives the population as 2,000,000 Indians, 1,500,000 mes- 
tizos and 500,000 white or near-white. 

63 Bryce gives the population of Peru and Bolivia as follows: 

6,000,000 total 
3,500,000 Indian 
1,500,000 mestizo 

1,000,000 Spaniards, more or less pure. 
South America, pp. 458-59. 
94 Ibid., p. 232. • 

86 Martin, Through Five Republics, p. 237. N. O. Winter, Guatemala 
and Her People of To-day, p. 109. 
89 Bryce is disposed to materially modify these proportions. He gives : 

Total 15,000,000 

Indian 8,000,000 

Mixed 6,000,000 

Spaniards 1,000,000 
South America, p. 459. 



%% 1 he Mulatto %n the United states 

These numbers are at best only a rough approximation. 
There are no data available which justify any close esti- 
mation either of the total population or of the various racial 
elements of which it is composed. Moreover, it is not pos- 
sible to make any accurate distribution of the population 
into racial categories because color is a badge of inferiority 
and is always denied or if too obvious to be denied, the 
amount is understated. Further there is no agreement as 
to what proportion of Negro or Indian blood must be pres- 
ent to rule an individual out of the white class to which 
every one strives to belong. Bryce, for example, in his 
estimates counts as "white" all whose racial ancestry is as 
much as three-fourths white. 97 The tendency of the official 
statistics is to count as white all educated mestizos?* 

Despite the fact that they constitute but a small per- 
centage of the total population in most of the Spanish- 
American republics, the whites are in all cases the ruling 
class." They form the social aristocracy, they practically 
control the political and governmental situation, 100 and they 
comprise the educated class so far as such a class exists. 101 

The census of 1910 gave a total population of 15,160,369 distributed 
as follows: 

15,160,369 total 
15,043,842 Mexican birth 

116,527 foreign birth of whom 29,541 were Spanish 
* 7 Bryce, South America, p. 565. 
M Ibid., p. 460. 

" Bolivia, for example. "Politics is left to the few whites and Mes- 
tizos in four or five towns. Politically the Bolivian nation shrinks from 
two million to some thousands." Ibid., p. 529. See, also, Ross, South 
of Panama, pp. 331 ff. 

™ South American Year Book, 1914, pp. 501-62. 
101 Ibid., p. 503. 

Speaking in particular of the women: "So far as the northern repub- 
lics of dusky and mixed races are concerned, one can only deal with the 
few white women of each republic, since all the rest may, for the pur- 






Mixed-Blood Races 45 

In the southern and more progressive republics, the white 
element has been reinforced continuously by a considerable 
immigration from western Europe. This is especially true 
of Argentine and Uruguay and to a somewhat lesser extent 
of Chile and of south and central Brazil, 102 where the whites 
are numerically the dominant group. In the northern re- 
publics, however, it is only a small white aristocracy that is 
comparable with the general population of Argentine and 
the other white states of the south. 103 As a consequence, 
the whites have been able to maintain a republican form of 
government in the southern republics ; in the north, it is only 
by compromising with the mixed elements that they have 
been able to maintain any government at all. 104 

Everj'where throughout Spanish America, the Indians 
form the lowest strata of the population and but seldom 
rise out of their degraded position. 105 In the remoter cen- 
tral regions and in the mountains, the race is still relatively 

poses of generalization, really and truly be placed in one category — 
that of the completely unintellectual." W. H. Koebel, The South Ameri- 
cans, p. 31. See, also, pp. 13, 16. 

102 Argentine, for example, has received an immigration in excess of 
four million during the past fifty years. Ibid., p. 17. There is much 
Germanic blood in the upper classes of Chile and this fact is said to be 
reflected in the political life. Ross, South of Panama, pp. 109, 110. 

103 "To the North of these countries [Argentine, Chile, Uruguay, South 
Brazil and Central Brazil] ... we get for the most part territories 
where a small white and educated aristocracy governs of necessity the 
population of Indians, Mestizos, or even Negroes; and thus we enter 
into a new and different phase which does not permit of comparison 
with European circumstances." Koebel, The South Americans, p. 13. 

104 Venezuela, for example, with her 10 per cent of white and near- 
white and her 90 pef cent of Negroes, Indians and mestizos has never 
in her whole history had a president who attained office through a legally 
conducted election. South American Year Book, 1915, p. 742. 

106 Bryce, South America, pp. 478-79. He is speaking here of th« 
northern republics. 



; 



46 The Mulatto in the United States 

unmixed. There are no European settlers and even the in- 
filtration of Negro blood has been small. 106 The Negro 
aside from Brazil and the northern tropic regions, has not 
persisted. 107 The Indians in general perform all the lower 
forms of work and come but little into contact with the 
white people, except in the capacity of servants and em- 
ployees. They are in general wholly illiterate, 108 and so- 
cially and otherwise form a group apart — within the nation 
but not of it. "By the constitution they are, in many states, 
citizens and have votes. But they never think of voting, 
having, although free, no more to do with the government 
than the slaves had in the Southern United States before the 
Civil War." 109 

Between the small white upper class and the illiterate and 
largely uncivilized natives, stands the mestizo who is, taking 
Spanish America as a whole, the numerically dominant group. 
While the status of the mestizos varies within rather wide 
limits in different states and even within the same state, 
they form, in general, a sort of middle class in the popula- 
tion. Exception must here be made of the white Republics 
of Argentine and Uruguay, the native Republic of Paraguay 
and of Brazil, the southern parts of which are white, and the 
northern parts largely Negro and mulatto. 110 The upper 
class mestizos are in many cases small property owners and 
compose most of the small shop-keeping class ; from the 

loa ". . . the distinctions which undoubtedly exist, and are often sup- 
posed to be of race, are in fact only between Indians who are Catholic 
and speak Spanish and Indians, who are grouped by the other Indians, 
'as savages' . . ." Sir Charles W. Dilke, "Forced and Indentured Labor 
in South America," Nationalities and Subject Races, p. 101. 

107 Koebel, The South Americans, p. 92. 

108 The same might be said of most of the mixed and a good per cent 
of the white population. Eighty per cent of South America is illiterate. 

Bryce, South America, p. 529. Ross, South of Panama, p. 331. 
Ibid., p. 492. 






109 
110 



Mixed-Blood Races 47 

lower grades of the mestizo come the artisan and the ser- 
vant classes. 111 

But the ethnological distinctions seldom are clearly drawn. 
A certain per cent of the white race have preserved their 
racial integrity intact 112 and these everywhere form the so- 
cial and intellectual aristocracy. But the bulk of the so- 
called whites are tinged with a greater or less amount of 
Indian blood. 113 The upper class mestizos, in manners and 
customs and habits of life, often compare not unfavorably 
with their white neighbors. They are, to the extent of their 
ability, Spaniards. In education, they are Spanish; in re- 
ligion, they are Christians ; and in their ideas and habits of 
thinking, they are faithful imitations of the white aris- 
tocracy. 114 

Between the white man and the educated mestizo there is 
no color line in the sense in which that term is understood in 
the United States. For social and political purposes they 
form virtually one class. All mestizos, and increasingly so 
as their color decreases and their education increases, claim 
to be white men, and in general they are so treated. 115 It 
is, in fact, by compromising thus with the mixed element that 
the white has been able to maintain some semblance of or- 
derly government in many of the Latin American republics. 
But the mestizos are not all educated, and by no means all 

m South American Year Book, 1915, p. 503. 

112 Ibid., pp. 638, 503, 569. 

113 ". . . ethnologically there is no dividing line to be drawn in South 
America between the white, the Indian, and the Savage. The so-called 
whites are largely Indian, the Indians are largely negro, and the savages 
are partly Indian, partly negro and partly an amalgam of races older 
in the country than the principal Indian tribes." Dilke, Nationalities 
and Subject Races, p. 103. 

114 Bryce, South America, p. 433. Ross, South of Panama, p. 168. 

us «E ver y one wishes to be reckoned as a white man. . . ." Bryce, 
South America, p. 460. See, also, pp. 478-79, 473-74, 232, 472-73. 



48 The Mulatto in the United States 






are able, even in a South American community, to pass as 
white men. It is frequently as difficult to determine who 
should be deemed an Indian and who a mestizo, as it is at the 
other end of the scale to say who is to be deemed a white 
man and who a man of mixed-blood. 116 Between the lower 
class mestizo and the Indian, there is little intellectual or 
social distinction. 117 

While there are thus mixed-blood men in both the white 
and the Indian groups, it is not to be understood that the 
mestizo forms, in any other than a physiological sense, a 
connecting link between the races. He is, rather, a member 
of one or the other group depending upon his color, educa- 
tion, and economic status. The break between the upper- 
class mestizo and the Indian group is frequently a sharp one. 
They sometimes differ as widely as do the native and the 
white with the additional consideration that the mestizo con- 
stantly emphasizes the fact of his white blood by his hatred 
of and contempt for the native. 118 "The Indians," says 
Bryce, "have nothing, except the worship of the saints and 
a fondness for liquor, in common with the class above 
them." 119 I 

There is nothing in law or custom to prevent the intermar- 
riage of the races. The educated mestizo endeavors to marry 
a white woman and is successful in proportion to his economic 
status in the community. The lower-class mestizos intermix 
readily with the Indians. 120 Between the whites and the near- 

"• Bryce, South America, p. 458. 

117 "The Indians . . . absorb or are absorbed by the Mestizo." South 
American Year Book, 1915, p. 503. 

118 [He] "has repeatedly shown himself to be very cruel toward the 
Indians, whom he despises much more than the better class man would 
do." Ibid., p. 7. 

■" South America, p. 474. See, also, pp. 438, 185-86. 
,ao The mixed-blood women in Peru bear a goodly number of children 
to the Chinese coolies. See Ross, South of Panama, pp. 39-40. 



Mixed-Blood Races 49 

i whites, on the one hand, and the Indian and the lower-class 
'mestizo, on the other, there is no intermarriage; but this 
ifact seems to be due more to social than to racial causes. It 
lis class separation rather than a racial antipathy. 121 Says 
Bryce: 122 

To understand the social relations of the white and 
Indian races one must begin by remembering that there 
is in Spanish and Portuguese countries no such sharp 
colour line as exists where men of Teutonic stock are 
settled in countries outside of Europe. As this is true 
of the negro, it is even more true of the Indian. He 
may be despised as a weakling, he may be ignored as a 
citizen, he may be, as he was at one time, abominably 
oppressed and ill treated, but he excites no personal 
repulsion. It is not his race that is against him, but 
his debased condition. Whatever he suffers, is suffered 
because he is ignorant or timid or helpless, not because 
he is of a different blood and colour. . . . The distinc- 
tion between the races is in Spanish America a distinc- 
tion of rank or class rather than of colour. Against 
intermarriage there is, therefore, no more feeling than 
that which exists against any union palpably below a 
man's or woman's own rank in life. If it is rare for a 
pure white to espouse a pure Indian, that is because 
they are of different ranks, just as it is rare for a 
well-born Englishman to marry a peasant girl. There 
is nothing in the law to oppose such a union, and 
though whites seldom marry pure Indians, because the 
classes come little into contact, the presence of an un- 
mistakable Indian strain in a mestizo makes no dif- 
ference to his acceptability to a white woman of the 
same class. . . . 

m However, Meredith Townsend states that the years "during which 
Spaniards and Indians have dwelt together in South America have not 
softened their mutual antipathies; . . ." Asia, and Europe, pp. 217-18. 

"'SotUh America, pp. 470-71. 






50 The Mulatto in the United States 

The state of almost entire absence of racial or color prej- 
udice thus pictured seems, at times, — between revolutions 
and race wars — to approach realization in some of the South 
American countries. In how far this racial harmony is real 
and in how far it is merely a temporary accommodation to 
the exigencies of the situation, is still a matter of some doubt. 

But wherever the Negroes and mulattoes are found even 
in small numbers, there is also found an unmistakable race 
question. In Guiana, for example, there is a marked an- 
tipathy toward and avoidance of the black man by every 
other race and color in the community. There was formerly 
some intermarriage between the Portuguese immigrants and 
the blacks and mulattoes, but there is now an avoidance of 
association even of the low-class Europeans and the Negroes. . 
There is still some intermarriage between the Portuguese and 
the near-white mulattoes. 123 The Negroes have a wholesome 
fear of the Chinese, and the latter freely and without hesi- 
tation use the mulatto and Negro women as concubines 
though the relation is hardly one of marriage. 124 The East 
Indians intermix to some extent with the mulattoes, but they 
have the greatest antipathy for the blacks and refuse to 
cohabit with them. 125 The American Indian detests and 
despises the Negro. 126 The whites, even where they show 
no particular prejudice against the presence of Indian blood, 
have an entirely different attitude toward the Negro and the 

128 Johnston, The Negro in the New World, pp. 333-34. 



124 



Ibid., p. 332. The Negroes are "entirely 'unmoral' in their sexual 
relations" and have no repugnance toward intermixture with any of the 
other races. Ibid., p. 334. 

va «A n Indian kuli would ordinarily prefer to live unmarried sooner 
than cohabit with a negress: they are not perhaps so squeamish about 
marriage with mulattoes." Ibid., p. 334. See, also, p. 332. They inter- 
marry with the Amerindians. 

Ibid,, p. 332. Bryce, South America, pp. 473 f. n., 566-67, 



128 



Mixed-Blood Races 51 

mulatto. The greatest antipathy, however, is that existing 
between the near-white mulattoes on the one hand and the 
Negroes and mulattoes of darker hue on the other. 127 

In the Philippines 

In the Philippine Islands at the present time, there are two 
mixed-blood races in considerable numbers and of different 
race parentage — the Chinese mestizo and the Spanish 
viestizo. The former is the product of the intercrossing of 
the Chinese and the Malay ; the latter is the offspring of 
the Peninsular Spaniard or the Spanish creole with the na- 
tive Malay woman. A great variety of other mongrels is 
found, but not in numbers sufficient to assume the propor- 
tions of a problem. 

When the Spanish entered the Islands in 1521, they found 
the productive valleys occupied .by a race of uncivilized 
Moros. They subjugated this race, and undertook the busi- 
ness of conversion. To the Spaniards, the Islands were 
always rather a mission than a colony. There were no mines 
to be worked and no plantations calling for a large body of 
servile labor. There was no decline in the native population 
as was elsewhere true of the Spanish colonies 128 and there 
was no introduction of a substitute labor supply. The 
Islands were too far away and offered too little in the way 
of immediate and large returns to attract the Spanish mer- 

137 "There is a slight 'color question' in Guiana, but the sensitiveness 
lies rather between the 'near-whites' of pale ivory complexion and the 
darker tinted mulattoes or negroes. There is now practically no inter- 
marriage between whites and blacks; on the other hand, numerous unions 
< take place between whites, especially Portuguese, and the lighter- 
skinned negroids, many of whom would almost sooner perish in celi- 
bacy than intermarry with the negro or mulatto." Johnston, The Negro 
in the New World, p. 337. 
128 Keller, Colonization, p. 350. 

I 



52 The Mulatto in the United States 






chant. The number of Spaniards on the Islands was always 
small and consisted almost exclusively of the military and 
priestly classes. 129 Other foreigners were excluded. 

During the four centuries of the Spanish occupancy of 
the Islands, there grew up a Spanish mestizo mixture that 
numbers at present about two per cent of the population. 
A small per cent of this mixed-blood race is the product of 
intermarriage between the Spanish Creoles, who now number 
about three hundredths of one per cent of the population, 
and the native women of mixed parentage. The bulk of the 
mixed-blood race, however, owe their origin to less conven- 
tional and less permanent unions. Another considerable 
number of the mixed-blood race trace their ancestry back to 
a priestly origin. Officials and other Spaniards usually 
formed no permanent unions with the native girls. 

The second mixed-blood race, the Chinese mestizos, num- 
ber about two per cent of the population. They are more 
often, perhaps generally, the offspring of a fairly perma- 
nent union. 

The civil and social status of the various races and half- 
races follows for the most part the lines of race and color. 
Color prejudice and class hatred are everywhere a factor 
in the situation. At one extreme of the social scale are the 
foreign white and the white Creoles. Below them in the social 
scale, come the Spanish half-breeds, envious of the classes 
above them, contemptuous of those below. Every mixture 
of foreign blood has tended to raise them above the native. 
Now, as during the last two centuries of Spanish rule, they 
are the dominant class in the native affairs. The prominent 

120 In 1820 there was one white to 1,600 natives. The whites were 
mostly in Manila. In 1864 there was a total of 4,050 Spaniards in the 
Islands. Of these 3,280 were government officials, 500 were clergy, 200 
were landed proprietors and 70 were merchants. 



Mixed-Blood Races 53 

Filipinos are probably without exception from this mixed- 
)lood class. 130 "No Filipino ever has become known in 
America, either through his attainments or his political 
prominence, who was more than a few generations removed 
rom a foreign ancestor." 131 It is from this class that most 
)f the higher Filipino officials come. They are the discon- 
ented and troublesome element in the population. 132 "They 
ire always hoping for recognition as equals by the foreign- 
ers with whom they are brought into contact and to whom 
;hey may be related." 133 They despise the native element 
ind ignore the ties by which they are bound to them. The 
iresent administrative problem in the Islands is to prevent 
;he half-breed official from oppressing the despised Malay. 134 
The vigorous, thrifty, enterprising Chinese share with the 
Chinese half-breeds the monopoly of the trade in the Islands. 
The Chinese are despised by all the races, even by the Chinese 
I lalf-breed and the Filipino, as bitterly as by the Creoles and 

U0 "Rizal, the most famous man — and one might say the only famous 
nan — produced by the islands was the direct descendant of a Chinese 
rader, and his mother was of Filipino-Chinese-Spanish descent with a 
ittle Japanese blood." Carl Crow, "What About the Filipinos?" World's 
Work, Vol. 26, p. 519. See, also, J. A. Robertson, "Notes from the 
Philippines," Journal of Race Development, Vol. 3, p. 470, and Keller, 
Colonization, p. 350 f. n. The best discussion of Rizal's personality is 

! )y Ferdinand Blumentritt, Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographie, 
3d. X, Heft 2. There is a brief abstract of this article in Pop. Sci. 
Wo., July, 1902. An inaccurate and laudatory appreciation by his per- 
sonal friend, Sir Hugh Clifford, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, 

Vol. 172, pp. 620-38. Rizal married a white woman of English birth. 

see James A. LeRoy, The Americans in the Philippines, p. 117 f. n. 

Sergio Osmena, former speaker of the Philippine Assembly, was a 

, Chinese mestizo. Crow, World's Work, Vol. 26, p. 523. 
131 Ibid,, Vol. 26, p. 519. 

183 LeRoy, The Americans in the Philippines, p. 76. 
138 Crow, World's Work, Vol. 26, p. 519. 

184 Charles E. Woodruff, "Some Laws of Racial and Intellectual De- 
velopment," Journal of Race Development, Vol. 3, p. 175. 



54 The Mulatto in the United States 

foreign whites, and this is a situation of long standing. 13 * 
The quiet, industrious Chinese half-breed is perhaps the 
best man on the Islands. 136 He is classed with and despised 
as a Chinaman by the races above him, while, in his turn, he 
shares with the white the white man's bitter hatred for the 
Chinese and contempt for the Filipino. At the bottom of th< 
social scale, comes the Filipino who is economically inefficienl 
and despised by every one, while he in turn hates in varying 
degrees the various classes above him. 

135 ". . . It is also noteworthy that the Filipinos and even the Chines* 
half-breeds (mestizos de sangley) exhibited this hatred in as bitter s 
form as did the Spanish themselves." Keller, Colonization, p. 355. Le 
Roy, The Americans in the Philippines, p. 279, speaks of the "tra 
ditional hostility between the Filipinos and Chinese." 

130 ". . . During the latter days of my residence in the Islands in 190ii 
Governor-General Wright one day told me that he had recently person 
ally received from one of the most distinguished Filipinos of the time 
and a member of the Insular Civil Commission, the statement 'thai 
there was not a single prominent and dominant family among the chris- 
tianized Filipinos which did not possess Chinese blood.' The voice anc 
the will of the Filipinos to-day is the voice and the will of these brainy 
industrious, rapidly developing men whose judgment in time the world 
is bound to respect. . . ." A. E. Jenks, "Assimilation in the Philippines 
as Interpreted in Terms of Assimilation in America," American Jour- 
nal Sociology, Vol. 19, p. 783. Ratzel, The History of Mankind, Vol. 1 
p. 397, says that the Chinese half-breed in the Philippines is superioj 
to the European half-breed. See, also, LeRoy, The Americans in tht 
Philippines, p. 76. 






CHAPTER III 

MIXED-BLOOD RACES ( CONCLUDED) 

In Cuba, Porto Rico, and Santo Domingo 

THE Islands of the West Indies were colonized by Spain 
during the first quarter of the sixteenth century. Dur- 
ing this period Spain was at the height of her national power, 
and the Islands were the centers of trade and commercial 
activity. 

The Spaniards found the Islands inhabited by a numerous 
population of peaceful Indian tribes whom they conquered, 
enslaved, converted, and worked to death on the plantations 
and in the mines on the mainland. So disastrous to the 
natives was the Spanish policy of slavery, concubinage, and 
Catholicism that, with the exception of some infusion of 
Indian blood in the Spanish part of Santo Domingo and 
in Cuba, the native element is totally extinct. 1 

It was to save the native element from total extinction that 

1 The population of Santo Domingo decreased two-thirds in the first 
three years of Spanish occupancy. The population was estimated as 
follows : 

1492 3,000,000 

1508 60,000 

1510 46,000 

1572 20,000 

1574 14,000 

1648 under 500 

A similar fate befell all of the other Islands. See A. G. Keller, Colo- 
! nization, p. 226. 

55 



56 The Mulatto in the United States 

the introduction of Negroes was first recommended. Th< 
Spaniards had intermixed freely with the natives during th< 
two centuries that their extermination was in process. Wit} 
the Negroes they intermixed with almost equal readiness. 2 
A mulatto race soon sprang up and increased rapidly ii 
numbers. In Porto Rico, at the time of its cession to tin 
United States in 1898, approximately one-third of the pop- 
ulation was returned as colored. 3 The colored element in- 
cluded a few Chinese and the Negro-white mixture as wel 
as the pure Negroes. Of the total returned as colorec 
eighty-four per cent were of mixed-blood. In Cuba the pel 
cent of mixed-bloods in the Negro population is yet largei 
as is to be expected from the fact that the ratio of Negroe 
to the white population is much smaller. 4 From the other 
Islands, the Spanish were expelled before the mixture hac 
gone so far. 

Cuba, Porto Rico and Santo Domingo, Spanish until 1898 
and in spirit and civilization Spanish still, have the race 
problem in much the same form as it is found on the main- 
land of South America. The mixed-blood race is of Spanish. 
Negro, and Indian blood. On the mainland, the Indian blood 
is vastly in excess of the Negro; on the Islands, it is the 
Negro blood that predominates ; the Indian blood is but a 

2 Johnston attributes the fact that the Spanish have never shown the 
same repugnance as have the Northern nations of Europe to sexual 
intercourse with Negroes, to the ancient strain of Negro blood in their 
ethnic composition. Sir Harry H. Johnston, "The World-position of 
the Negro and Negroid," Inter-Racial Problems, pp. 359-30. 

8 Total 953,243 

White 589,462 

Colored 363,817 

4 White 1,067,354 or 67.9 per cent; Colored 505,443 or 32.1 per cent. 
The few Chinese are here counted as white as has been the Spanish cus- 
tom in all previous censuses. United States War Department Census of 
Cuba, 1899, p. 97. 



Mixed-Blood Races 57 

trace. 

In Cuba the opportunities and personal privileges of the 
Negro people have been somewhat greater than in most 
other parts of the West Indies. They are and always have 
been sufficiently below the whites in numbers effectually to 
prevent any wide-spread reversion to their ancestral Afri- 
can customs. During the slave period, though cases of bar- 
barous mistreatment were not infrequent, the Spanish laws 
were highly favorable to the slave. It was easy for him to 
purchase his freedom and there were a large number of free 
Negroes throughout the slavery period. 5 After the aboli- 
tion of slavery in 1880, the rights of the black man were 
of course much greater and his status much higher, the 
Spanish government giving the same consideration to the 
colored as to the white Cuban. The rebellions of 1868-78 
and of 1895-98 and the threatened uprising in 1906 all 
operated to raise the status of the Negro. At present all 
civil, military and ecclesiastical positions and honors are 
open to members of the race. 6 

The mulattos have responded to these conditions in a way 
that differentiates them from the Negroes elsewhere. Though 
the race is behind the whites in education, morals, and eco- 
nomic advancement, many individuals have made advances 
along these lines. They are found in all professions and 

Slaves 
59.0 
54.4 
63.3 
72.9 
74.1 
62.9 
44.3 

Ibid., p. 98. See, also, H. C. Morris, The History of Colonization, 
Vol. I, p. 278. 

• U. S. War Dept. Census of Cuba, 1899, p. 69. 



Census Year 


Free Colored 


1775 


41.0 


1792 


45.6 


1817 


36.7 


1827 


27.1 


1841 


25.9 


1861 


37.4 


1877 


55.7 



58 The Mulatto in the United States 

in all trades. Bullard says : 7 "Though found in more pro- 
fessions than in America, they are less industrious than here. 
They show disposition but no aptness for commerce, and 
their inclination in this direction must perhaps be looked 
upon more as a desire to avoid the hard labor of the fields 
than as any serious effort to try fortune in trade." How- 
ever this may be, a few have distinguished themselves 8 and 
a goodly number have made a reasonable success ; they show 
more self-respect and self-possession than is found elsewhere 
among Negro people. Speaking of this self-respecting atti- 
tude Bullard says : 9 

. . . Everj'where — in public, in the streets, in the the- 
atres, on steamers and cars — our man of negro blood 
carries himself with confidence and self-possession. It 
is his marked characteristic in Cuba. Looking at him, 
one cannot but be impressed with his great gain in 
dignity in consequence. He feels himself a worthier 
man. In rural guard, police and other official posi- 
tions occupied by him, he conducts himself with steadi- 
ness and dignity. Placing him in such offices seems 
not in Cuba, as in America, to make him foolish and 
giddy. These are noteworthy things for Cuba and 
the negro race. 

During the slavery period the black and mulatto females 
sought the white and disdained the black men as fathers of 
their children. So extensive and lonsj continued has been 
this intercrossing that it is now impossible to draw any clear 
distinction between the races. At either extreme the colors 
are unmixed. The aristocracy and the middle-class towns- 

7 Lieutenant-Colonel R. L. Bullard, U. S. A., "The Cuban Negro," 
North American Review, Vol. 184, p. 629. 

8 Antonio Maceo of the Cuban Army, 1895-98, was a mulatto. See 
U. S. War Dept. Census of Cuba, 1899, p. 69. 

9 North American Review, Vol. 184, p. 626. 



Mixed-Blood Races 59 

folk are quite free from Negro intermixture ; some blacks, 
especially the rural folk of the interior, are still of unmixed 
African blood. But between the extremes is an unbroken 
gradation through all the tints from the swarthy complexion 
of the Spaniard to the glossy black of the West African 
Negro. Yet few of those who pass as Negroes are without 
some admixture of the white man's blood. "Few of the Ne- 
groes are black; some of the blackest have the regular feat- 
ures of the Caucasian ; and racial mixtures are everywhere 
evidenced by color of skin and by physiognomy." 10 

There is no hard and fast color line separating the col- ' 
ored and white races of the Cuban population. In politics, 
the Negro is the equal of the white man. In resorts, in 
places of amusement, and in public conveyances, there is no 
separation of the races. Negroes have held some minor 
political offices and members of some of the higher govern- 
mental bodies have been tinged with Negro blood. In social 
affairs there is little ostensible inequality but only in the 
army, if anywhere, has there been recognized any condition 
of real social equality. 11 Socially and politically, however, 
the Negro is constantly losing ground as the white race 
increases in numbers. 12 Nowhere else in the West Indies 
is there so much tenderness on the point of color. Bullard 
says on this point: 13 

10 Encyclopaedia Britannic a: Cuba. See, also, Sir Harry H. Johnston, 
The Negro in the New World, p. 59, and William Z. Ripley, "Race 
Problems in Cuba," Publications of the American Statistical Associa- 
tion, Vol. 7, pp. 85-89. 

11 U. S. War Dept., Census of Cuba, 1899, p. 69. 

12 "Yet the negro is losing ground, politically and socially, and unless 
he is content with his present status of farmer, labourer, petty trades- 
man, minor employe, and domestic servant, there will arise a 'colour' 
question here as in the United States." Johnston, The Negro in the New 
World, p. 60. 

13 North American Review, Vol. 184, p. 628. 



60 The Mulatto in the United States 

. . . The earliest negroes brought to Cuba had a sad, 
faint little belief that after death they should be born 
again into another land, white men. "Negro" and even 
"mulatto" must be softened into "gente de color" . . . 
and "pardo" . . . while the house-maid becomes 
"Sefiorita" . . . and the cook "Sefiora." . . . These, 
and the tendency, in the face of manifest aversion, to 
push themselves as equals upon another race, are dis- 
couraging signs of weakness, showing a lack of that 
genuine independence, self-respect and pride that indi- 
cate strength and real worth. 






It is, however, between the blacks and the mixed-bloods 
that the lines of social demarcation are most clearly drawn. 
The mixed-blood man desires to be white, and imitates the 
white man's virtues and the white man's faults. Bullard 14 
points out the difference in the social life of the blacks and! 
the mixed-bloods and illustrates the difference by a descrip- 
tion of the two dances which are more or less peculiar to the 
Negroes of the Island : 

There are two dances, the "Congo" and the "Creole," 
both protracted perhaps through many nights. The 
first is a memory or tradition of Africa. In it, men 
and women, black, real negroes, sing the songs and 
dance the dances of Africa to the sound of rattles and 
rude drums, genuine savage instruments. The dance is 
always significant. It takes many forms of war, love, 
tradition and con jury, yet it is most addressed to the 
sexual passions and can but lead to their indulgence. 
The "Congo" may be seen to-day in any country town 
in the cane regions. 

The "Creole" aspires to be very different. It is a 
modified waltz by the more mixed generation, far less 
interesting, more modern, but not more moral than 
the "Congo." One needs but to see it to be impressed 
with its sensuality. 

1 North American Review, Vol. 184, pp. 625-26. 



Mixed-Blood Races 61 

In Haiti 

After some two centuries of occupancy Spain lost Haiti 
to the French. It remained a French province for nearly a 
hundred years, during which time the mulattoes came to be 
a distinct caste and to occupy a separate status in the com- 
munity. On the one hand they were generally free from 
bondage; on the other they were excluded from citizenship. 
When, at the time of the French Revolution, the slaves were 
liberated, the mutual antipathies of the whites, blacks, and 
mulattoes blossomed into a triangular warfare, the final 
result of which was the massacre of the entire European pop- 
ulation. 15 After several costly and unsuccessful attempts 
on the part of the French and later of the English to restore 
orderly government, the Island was abandoned, became a 
black, independent state, and has been for a century free to 
work out its salvation without interference. 

The abandonment of the Island by the civilized powers 
so soon after the emancipation of the blacks was fatal to 
Haitian prosperity. The civil wars had destroyed property 
and capital of every description and left labor in a hope- 
lessly demoralized state. The effect was as disastrous polit- 
ically as it was economically : the political history of the 
hundred years is simply a narrative of revolutions. The 
country, nominally a republic, has in practice alternated 
between anarchy and military despotism. The actual power 
has been in the hands of the president who almost always 
rode into office as the momentary favorite of the major divi- 
sion of the army. 16 Below the forms of civilized government 

16 J. A. Froude, The English in the West Indies, pp. 182-83. 

18 ". . . Scarcely a President in the history of Haiti has not been a 
military man, and the favorite leader for the time being, of the major 
portion of the army. . . ." Johnston, The Negro in the New World, 
p. 19T. 



62 The Mulatto in the United States 

there always has existed in every department of the official 
life every conceivable form of political corruption, official 
dishonesty, and judicial murder. "Justice is venal and the 
police brutal and inefficient." 17 The Roman Catholic relig- 
ion has degenerated into a thin disguise for the practice of 
the rites of Voodooism in which cannibalism and the sacri- 
fice of children in the Serpent's honor has, at least at times, 
played an important part. 18 The forms of marriage are 
disregarded or forgotten. 10 Polygamy prevails in the in- 
terior and the frequent orgiastic dances are accompanied by 
promiscuous sexual debaucher}^ 20 On the whole, the Island, 
during the century of independence and self-government, has 
made no progress along any line, has retrogressed in some 






17 Encyclopedia Britannica: Haiti. 

"See H. V. H. Prichard, Where Black Rules White; a Journey 
Across and About Hayti, Chapter IV. For a more apologetic account 
see General Legitime, "Some General Considerations of the People and 
Government of Haiti," Inter-Racial Problems, pp. 183-84. 

19 "In most of the country districts polygamy is openly practiced. 
The rite of marriage — civil and religious — is probably confined to about 
an eighth of the total adult population. . . ." Johnston, The Negro 
in the New World, p. 194. 

20 "The 2,500,000 Haitian peasants are passionately fond of dancing, 
will even sometimes dance almost or quite naked. And following on 
this choregraphic exercise is much immorality. . . ." Johnston, The 
Negro in the New World, p. 194. It is interesting to compare this state- 
ment with his description of the dance of the Brazilian Negro. "The 
dances to which negro slaves were trained . . . usually began with a 
slow movement of two persons, who approached each other with a shy 
and diffident air, and then receded bashful and embarrassed. By de- 
grees, the time of the music increased, the diffidence wore off, and the 
dance concluded with 'indecencies not fit to be seen nor described.' 
Sometimes it was of a different character, attended by jumping, shout- 
ing, and throwing their arms over each other's heads, and assuming the 
most fierce and stern aspects. The indecent display was a 'dance of 
love,' but the shouting dance was a mimicry of war." Ibid., p. 93. As 
a further stage in the evolution of the race and the dance compare the 
American Negro's "cake-walk." 



Mixed-Blood Races 63 

lines and in others the "republic has gone back to the lowest 
type of African barbarism." 21 

No census ever has been taken, and consequently there are 
no accurate figures as to the population. The population, 
however, is made up almost entirely of Negroes, about nine- 
tenths of whom are full-blood Africans. The ten per cent 
of mulattoes is said to be a rapidly diminishing class. 22 The 
number of whites is very small and of negligible influence in 
the affairs of the country. They are, by a provision of the 
constitution, prohibited from holding real estate. 23 

There is a sharp contrast between the black and the mu- 
latto inhabitants. The blacks, who form the peasantry of 
the country, are peaceable, kindly, and hospitable people. 
They are constitutionally lazy, 24 almost entirely unedu- 
cated 25 and they preserve their ancient snake worship and 
cannibalistic rites under the forms of Roman Catholicism. 2 ' 
Their sex relations are of a frankly natural sort. "Mar- 

21 Chambers' Encyclopedia: Hayti. See, also, Encyclopedia Britan- 
nica: Haiti, and New International Encyclopaedia: Haiti. 

22 Encyclopedia Britannica: Haiti. For a contrary opinion see Earl 
Finch, "The Effects of Racial Miscegenation," Inter-Racial Problems, 
pp. 109-10. 

23 Johnson's Cyclopedia: Haiti. 

21 "The island is one of the most fertile in the world, and if it had an 
enlightened and stable government, an energetic people, and a little capi- 
tal, its agricultural possibilities would be boundless." Encyclopedia 

Britannica: Haiti. 

25 "The plain fact remains that something like 2,500,000 out of the 
3,000,000 of Haitians cannot read or write, and are as ignorant as un- 
reclaimed natives of Africa." Johnston, The Negro in the New World, 

p. 18T. 

"But what use is it talking of the 'country' doing this or willing that 
when no more than 200,000 out of 3,000,000 Haitians have the slightest 
approach to education? . . ." Ibid., p. 204. 

26 "At least two out of the three millions of Haitian negroes are only 
Christians in the loose statistics of geographers. They are still African 
pagans, . . ." Ibid., p. 193. 



64 The Mulatto in the United States 

riage is neither frequent nor legally prescribed." 27 Polyg- 
amy is openly practiced and the African dances lead to a 
more or less wholesale and promiscuous sexual indulgence. 
They speak a patois of French origin which is known locally 
as creole. The one man of first-class ability produced by 
the black group was the insurgent chief, Francois Domi- 
nique Toussaint. 28 

The mulattoes are economically, socially, and intellectu- 
ally far in advance of the black Negroes. They compose the 
professional classes and own most of the property. They 
are frequently educated in Paris and many do not materially 
differ in education from Europeans of the same class. 29 In 
regard to the educational system, Johnston says : 30 

. . . Unhappily, the weak point in all this superior 
education of the Haitians is its utterly unpractical 
relation to a useful and profitable existence in the 
West Indies. . . . But the education which she gives 
to the youth of Haiti is perversely useless in its na- 
ture. It is apparently only adapted to life in Paris 
or in a French provincial town, and the adepts thus 
trained show a singular tendency on returning to Haiti 
to cast off their European learning. Young doctors, 
sent to France for education in medical science, come 
back and discard any modern aseptic or antiseptic the- 
ories in their practice, in fact almost revert to the po- 
sition of negro charlatans. Lawyers can think of noth- 
ing but the meticulous intricacies of the Code Napoleon, 

77 Encyclopedia Britannica: Haiti. 

"In middle life Toussaint acquired the nickname L'Ouverture be- 
cause, having lost the most of his front teeth, there was a marked open- 
ing in his mouth when he spoke. See Johnston, The Negro in the New 
World, p. 157. Toussaint was a leader of the Negroes and is generally 
considered to be a full-blood Negro. That this is the case, however, 
is at least doubtful. 

New International Encyclopaedia: Haiti. 
"Negro in the New World, p. 188. 



10 



Mixed-Blood Races 65 

and seem incapable of devising a simple civil and crim- 
inal jurisprudence applicable to the essentially Afri- 
can race which inhabits Haiti. . . . 

In dress, manners, and habits of life, they imitate the French 
and exaggerate upon their models. 31 Though comparatively 
few in numbers, they occupy most of the prominent positions 
in the political and governmental affairs of the Island and 
generally manage to control the political situation. The ma- 
jority of Haiti's score or more of Presidents, and all of the 
better ones, have been mulattoes. 82 They form the more en- 
lightened and less brutal class of the population. 

Between the two groups there exists and has existed 
throughout the entire history of the Republic the bitterest 
type of race hatred. The hatred of the Negro for the mu- 
latto is equaled only by the mulatto's contempt for the 
Negro. 33 The mulattoes hate and despise the black man 
with all the bitterness of a superior caste which lacks the 
power, but not the desire, to reduce the black man to the 
status of a slave. 34 

In Jamaica 

Jamaica became an English province in 1658. The cen- 
tury and a half of Spanish occupancy, except for the anni- 
hilation of the native Arawak Indians, had no permanent 

81 "As to the dress of the two hundred thousand educated people, 
though less exotic than it was, it is still, as in Liberia — a worship of 
the tall hat and frock-coat. In the streets of Port-au-Prince, as of 
Monrovia, in a temperature 95 degrees in the shade and something under 
boiling-point in the sun, you may see Haitian statesmen cavorting about 
in black silk hats of portentous height and glossiness, with frock-coats 
down to their knees, and wearing lemon kid gloves. . . ." Ibid., p. 190. 

32 Prichard, Where Black Rules White, p. 82. 

83 Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 159. See, also, Ency~ 
clopcedia Britannica: Haiti. 

"Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 159. 



66 The Mulatto in the United States 

effect upon the Island. When taken by the British, the 
total population, slave and free, did not number above three 
thousand. After the formation of the Royal African Com- 
pany in 1672, with a monopoly on the slave trade, Jamaica 
became one of the great slave marts of the world. The Eng 4 - 
lish emancipation act was passed in 1834 and, subject to a 
short apprenticeship, the slaves were free. 

The present total population of Jamaica is approximately 
830,000. Of these, 15,000, in round numbers, are pure 
white, 17,000 are East Indian coolies, and about 2,000 are 
Chinese; a total of some 34,000 non-African people. The 
remaining 796,000 are Negro and Negro mixtures. 35 The 
mixed-bloods number about one-fifth of the total number of 
the race. 

The various classes in the population seem to correspond 
exactly to the race and color lines. Needham 36 says that 

. . . The inhabitants are divided into three classes 
which are comparable, except as to numbers, to the 
three classes existing in England. The pure whites 
correspond to the aristocracy ; the "coloured" . . . 
are in a social sense relatively like the English middle 
class ; the darks or blacks — meaning those who have 
no evidence of white ancestry — are the laboring or 
peasant class. These three mingle freely in many of 

88 Races 

White 
Colored 
Black 

East Indians 
Chinese 
Not specified 
Total 
Census of Jamaica, 1911. 

88 Charles K. Needham, "A Comparison of Some Conditions in Jamaica 
with those in the United States," Journal of Race Development, Vol. 
4, p. 190. 



Numbers 


Percentage 


15,605 


1.88 


163,201 


19.63 


630,181 


75.80 


17,380 


2.09 


2,111 


0.25 


2,905 


0.35 


831,383 


100.00 






Mixed-Blood Races 67 

the affairs of life, but in certain other matters there is 
a distinction well recognized by an individual when 
coming in contact with one who is his social supe- 
rior. . . . 

There is a hard and fast color line between the whites and 
the Negroes and mulattoes. 

The blacks are the laboring class. There has been some 
effort to settle them as independent peasant proprietors but 
the effort has not been a marked success. The conditions 
of life are such as to require but little work in order to 
live; the Negroes do the little that is required. 37 They are 
without education or the desire for education. 38 They have 
little part in the government and in general show little de- 
sire to participate. 39 The relations of the sexes are of the 
most elastic sort, well over half of the births being illegiti- 
mate. 40 

87 It was the impossibility of getting the Negroes to do any regular 
work that led to the importation of the Chinese and the Indian coolies. 
Fronde, The English in the West Indies, pp. 50, 73 ff. 

88 "At the present day only about one-quarter of the total colored 
population of Jamaica can read and write." The fact that there is 
little agricultural or industrial education suited to the race offered in 
the schools perhaps accounts in part for their indifference to education. 
Though free and liberally supported by the government, the education 
is not suited to the needs of the race. See Johnston, The Negro in the 
New World, p. 270. 

38 "The black does not want representative government; he prefers to 
rely on the impartial, despotic rule of trained officials, . . ." "The blacks 
. . . always prefer a white man. . ." William Thorp, "How Jamaica 
Solves the Negro Problem," World's Work, Vol. 8, p. 4910. 

40 ". . . No negress could bear the idea of growing to old age without 
being a mother; she would deem herself slighted. Therefore the negro 
and mulatto men are much run after; the marriage rate is not only low, 
but tends to decrease (it is just now about 3.8 per 1000 persons), and 
with its decrease rises the percentage of illegitimate births, which now 
[1906] stands at the figure of sixty-five children out of every hundred." 
Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 275. 



t 



68 The Mulatto in the United States 

The mulattoes are officially separated from the blacks by 
applying- to them the special racial designation coloured. 
This class includes the majority of those engaged in the 
trades and professions and they fill most of the minor gov- 
ernmental positions and some of the higher positions in the 
public service. 41 The press of the country, though owned 
by white men, is, for the most part, run by mulattoes. 
Johnston 42 states that 

The negroid in this island enters into all the profes- 
sions and careers and fills nine-tenths of the posts un- 
der Government. The coloured population, besides 
residing as cultivators in the country, frequents the 
towns and earns a living as doctors, dentists, minis- 
ters of religion, teachers, waiters, tradesmen, skilled ar- 
tisans, clerks, musicians, postal employes,. press report- 
ers, the superior servants of the State railways, over- 
seers of plantations, hotel-keepers. . . . The pure Ne- 
gro in Jamaica is mainly a peasant and a countryman. 

Between the blacks and the mulattoes, there is a sharp 
social as well as official distinction. 43 The social position 
of a member of the race is conditioned by the lightness of 
his skin and the absence of other racial marks. 44 The mu- 



41 lit 



'On the Legislative Council of to-day only four of the elected 
members are of unmixed Nordic-European descent; four are of well- 
known Jamaican- Jewish families descended from the Spanish and Por- 
tuguese Jews of Guiana and Brazil; one member is an absolute negro 
(of Bahaman birth), and the remainder (five) are octoroons and mu- 
lattoes of Jamaican birth." Johnston, The Negro in the New World, 
p. 268. 

"Ibid., p. 280. 

43 ". . . I am told that in the West Indies the 'coloured' man despises 
the 'nigger' and feels himself immeasurably his social superior." Wil- 
liam Archer, Thro A fro- America, p. 273. See, however, Froude, The 
English in the West Indies, p. 155, for the attitude of the blacks toward 
the mixed-bloods. 

44 See Needham, Journal of Race Development, Vol, 4, pp. 193-94. 



Mixed-Blood Races 69 

lattoes refuse to intermarry with the blacks 45 except in 
cases where the black individual is possessed of large fortune 
or holds a high government position ; even in this case the 
children of the union will be barred, because of their color 
and features, from the upper class mulatto society. 46 

The same views on the subject of intermarriage of the 
races are held by the white people of Jamaica as are held 
by the white people of the Southern United States. Mixed 
marriages are approved by the ambitious mulattoes and by 
the "whites by law." The exceptionally light-colored girls 
of this latter class are occasionally able to secure white 
husbands from the immigrants to the Island, whom they 
have deluded into the belief that they are really white. 47 A 
few other pretty, well-educated and wealthy girls of this 
class are able to marry white because of their wealth and 
of the scarcity of white girls on the Island. 4S The number, 
however, is very small, and sexual association between the 
white men and the mulatto girls goes on without the for- 

45 The same thing is true of the East Indian coolies. "They are proud, 
however, and will not intermarry with the Africans. . . . The black 
women look with envy at the straight hair of Asia, and twist 
their unhappy wool into knots and ropes in the vain hope of being mis- 
taken for the purer race. But this is all. The African and the Asiatic 
will not mix. . . ." Froude, The English in the West Indies, pp. 73-74. 

46 ". . . When such a child [a mulatto with Negro features] appears 
in the Jamaican upper class— let the skin be ever so irreproachable in 
color— that individual is almost doomed to step down when he or she 
settles under a roof separate from the parents. Of course all such ob- 
stables are sometimes counterbalanced when an abundant dowry is pro- 
vided; but we are now considering only general rules." Needham, Jour- 
nal of Race Development, Vol. 4, p. 192. 

47 Thorp, World's Work, Vol. 8, p. 4912. 

48 ". . . Out in the country it is not uncommon to find a white man 
married to a woman of mixed ancestry, for the same reason that white 
men go to Oklahoma and marry squaws or half-breed girls. . . ." Need- 
ham, Journal of Race Development, Vol. 4, p. 195. 



70 The Mulatto in the United States 

mality of a legal marriage. 49 Marriages between mulatto 
or "white by law" males and white women almost never occur. 
The few on record are those of light-colored men of wealth 
who have gone to England and married white women there, 
where a man is lionized not in spite of his color but because 
of it, or where the fact of his Negro blood is not known. 50 
The native families on the Island never marry outside their 
race; any British officer or official would ruin his career by 
taking a colored wife. 

Racial feeling is everywhere present in Jamaica though 
the insignificant number of the whites and the political recog- 
nition of the mulattoes have, in general, kept it from assum- 
ing the proportions of a problem. 51 The blacks are socially, 
economically, and intellectually inferior and contentedly ac- 
cept the inferior status assigned them. 52 Except in the 

*° Needhara, Journal of Race Development, Vol. 4, p. 195. Some stu- 
dents at least recognize this as a desirable phenomenon. ". . . There is 
no such reason against the begetting of children by white men in coun- 
tries where, if they are to breed at all, it must be with women of col- 
oured or mixed race. The offspring of such breeding, whether legitimate 
or illegitimate, is, from the point of view of efficiency, an acquisition to 
the community, and, under favourable conditions, an advance on the 
pure-bred African. . . ." Sir Sidney Olivier, White Capital and Col- 
oured Labour, p. 38. 

60 Thorp, World's Work, Vol. 8, p. 4913. See, also, W. P. Livingstone, 
"The West-Indian and American Negro: A Contrast," North American 
Review, Vol. 185, p. 647. 

51 "... I am convinced that this class [mulatto] as it at present exists 
is a valuable and indispensable part of any West Indian community, and 
that a colony of black, coloured, and whites has far more organic effi- 
ciency and far more promise in it than a colony of black and white alone. 
. . . The graded mixed class in Jamaica helps to make an organic 
whole of the community and saves it from this distinct cleavage." 
Olivier, White Capital and Coloured Labour, pp. 38-39. See, also, 
Livingstone, North American Review, Vol. 185, p. 647. 

a "The whites regard the negro as a primitive being, incapable as yet 
of standing alone, and adopt the attitude of trainers and teachers: the 
negroes are conscious of their inferiority and willingly fall into the po- 



. 



Mixed-Blood Races 71 

capacity of employees they come little or not at all into 
contact with the whites. 

In South Africa 

In South Africa the native population is everywhere far 
more numerous than the Europeans ; the mixed element is 
generally small. It is, speaking generally, only in Cape 
Colony that a very considerable half-caste population is 
found. 53 

The half-breed race is of very complicated ancestry. In 
the early days, the Dutch mixed to some extent with the 
Hottentot women of the Cape, giving rise to the so-called 
Bastaards. 54 Later, as they withdrew into the interior, they 
came into contact with the Abantus, who at that time were 
migrating from the Northwest, and produced a second type 
of hybrid. 55 In 1658 came the first introduction of Negro 

sition of learners." Livingstone, North American Review, Vol. 185, p. 
647. See, also, Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 279. So uni- 
versal is this feeling of inferiority on the part of the blacks and mu- 
lattoes that it is claimed that white women can go about unprotected in 
perfect safety. 

63 "In British South Africa the colored races are nearly five times as 
numerous as the whites." Encyclopaedia Britannica: South Africa. In 
1904 the white population was 1,149,336 and the colored 7,111,329. In 
1911 the white population was 1,305,531 and the colored 6,890,693. By 
colonies H. E. S. Fremantle, The New Nation; A Survey of the Condi- 
tions and Prospects of South Africa, p. 179, gives the following: 



Colonies 


European 


Colored 


Total 


Cape Colony 


579,741 


1,830,063 


2,409,804 


Orange R. Colony 


142,679 


244,636 


387,315 


Transvaal 


297,277 


972,674 


1,269,951 


Natal 


97,109 


1,011,645 


1,108,754 


Total 


1,116,806 


4,059,018 


5,175,824 



See, also, Encyclopcedia Britannica Year Book, 1913, pp. 702-12. 
"Keller, Colonization, p. 444. 
The Bushmen appear to have been the original South Africans. The 



65 



7£ The Mulatto in the United States 

slaves from the West African Coast; 50 shortly afterwards 
began the importation of Asiatic convicts from the East 
Indian Archipelago. These Mohammedan Malays mixed 
with the slave women from the Guinea Coast as well as with 
the native Hottentot women. There were also slaves from 
Mozambique and natives from Madagascar, the injection 
of whose blood further complicated the ethnic mix. 57 Speak- 
ing of the present-day conditions in Cape Town and Colony 
as a result of an incomplete fusing of these divergent ethnic 
types, Evans says : 58 

. . . Equally, to a Natal resident visiting Cape Town 
the mixed colored population of that city and neigh- 
borhood is a feature that deeply impresses him. He 
sees a mixture of races to which he is quite unaccus- 
tomed. Hottentot, Bushman, Mozambique black, Ma- 
lay, and other peoples from the Far East, liberated 
slaves from West and East, Abantu, and European all 
fused, in varying proportions, to make the colored 
Cape people of to-day. At one end of the scale he 
sees men and women almost white, well educated, well 
spoken, well dressed, courteous and restrained in man- 
ner, and at the other end of this color scale some whom 
he considers inferior to the ordinary native or Indian 
coolie of his home. . . . 

These mixed-blood people are at the present time the in- 
tellectual class among the blacks. The blacks are on their 
native soil and never have had the advantage of a period of 

Hottentots were the dominant race at the time of the settlemnt. The 
Kafir (Bantu) is a conqueror in South Africa. These people have never 
been enslaved and are keenly conscious of that fact; they have the in- 
stincts of a race with a proud history. Fremantle, The New Nation, 
pp. 181-83. 

00 James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 104.. 

"Encyclopedia Britannica: South Africa. 

cs Maurice S. Evans, Black and White in South East Africa; A Study 
in Sociology, p. 296. 



Mixed-Blood Races 73 

industrial training such as the Negroes in the New World 
received during the slave regime. They are practically all 
heathen and handicapped by the lack of a culture language. 
In point of natural ability, the Abantus probably are con- 
siderably superior to West African Negroes who made up 
the bulk of the importations to the Americas. 59 Moreover, 
the blacks are such an overwhelming majority in South 
Africa that they have little opportunity to acquire, or to 
have thrust upon them, the white man's culture ; their nu- 
merical preponderance operates to their serious disadvan- 
tage. The mixed-bloods form separate groups apart from 
the native and from the white, and live a life similar to their 
European neighbors. In general their aims and ideals are 
white, though they grade off by almost imperceptible de- 
grees into the native groups who form the great mass of the 
population. Freemantle considers them as doubtfully su- 
perior to the Abantus. He says : 60 

The half-castes, or coloured people, as they are gen- 
erally called, have more civilization though not more 
character. They are showing good capacity as arti- 
sans, and although their position as the lower class in 
the towns, the dubious origin of their race, and the 
absence of such primitive but effective discipline as 
controls the Kafirs in their tribal state do not conduce 
to high standards of life, it cannot be said that they 
have proved that they are essentially lacking in the 
moral qualities which distinguish strong and virile peo- 
ples. . . . 

Mr. Finot, however, has asserted that the Bastaards are 
in no sense inferior to the pure whites, 01 but this seems not 

59 Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, pp. 378-79. 

60 The New Nation, p. 182. 

Finch, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 109, says that they have "multiplied 
and prospered while the pure Hottentots have rapidly decreased." 

61 "The Griquas [Bastaards], mixed products of Hottentots and Dutch, 



74 The Mulatto in the United States 

to be the opinion of those with most knowledge of the actual 
facts. Evans, for example, says : G2 

... It is utterly contrary to fact to say they 
[Griquas] are equal to Europeans; either physically, 
mentally, morally, as a whole, neither are they equal 
in any single character of value. . . . The Griquas are 
a degenerate, dissolute, demoralized people, weak and 
unstable, lazy and thriftless. They appear to be con- 
stitutionally immoral, far more so than either the Euro- 
pean or Bantu people among whom they live. The 
branch of these people with whom I am best acquainted 
live in Griqualand East, just south of the Natal bor- 
der. They came to this land, then unoccupied owing 
to native wars and thus called No Man's Land, under 
Adam Kok their chief, some half century ago. It is 
one of the best parts of South Africa, well grassed 
and w r ell watered, with fertile arable land, a glorious 
climate, with good rainfall, and healthy for all kinds 
of live-stock. This goodly land was parcelled out to 
the Griqua families in farms of from 2000 to 3000 acres. 
Never had a people a better start in life. To-day the 
land has passed from them and they live miserably as 
squatters, as herds for Europeans, or without definite 
employment, and the farms they once held are owned 
and occupied by Europeans, who are prosperous and 
thriving, and constantly advancing in the amenities of 
life. The Griquas were not dispossessed by force; ex- 
cepting for one short-lived outbreak the country has 
been in peace. They are simply constitutionally unable 
to hold ; gin, immorality, laziness, debt, the lack of 
foresight and inability to forego present gratification 

or the Cafusos, are quite equal to pure whites, just as the cross breeds 
of Indian and Spanish are at least as good as the Spaniards themselves." 
Finot, Race Prejudice. Quoted by Maurice S. Evans, Black and White 
in the Southern States, pp. 25-26. 

62 Black and White in the Southern States, pp. 26-27. See, also, Fried- 
rich Ratzel, The History of Mankind, Vol. 2, p. 295, and £lisee Reclus, 
Africa, Vol. 4, p. 149. 






Mixed-Blood Races 75 

for future well-being, are the reasons for their race 
failure. The methods of the incoming European were 
sometimes not justifiable, but the hopeless weakness of 
the Griqua was his undoing. 

Between the races in South Africa there is a complete 
separation on the basis of color. The white inhabitants 
recognize no difference between the various shades of Ne- 
groes, but draw an impassable color line with the whites on 
one side and all grades of the colored population on the 
other. 63 No colored man ever enters the house of a white 
man except it be as a servant. Intermarriage, though per- 
mitted in the English colonies, does not occur in South 
Africa, and illicit relations between the races are pretty 
effectually tabooed by an intolerant public opinion. 64 "Each 
race goes its own way and lives its own life." 65 Black chil- 
dren are not admitted to the schools attended by white chil- 
dren, 66 with the exception of a very few mission schools to 
which a few families of the poorer whites send their children 
because of the low fees. 67 The superiority of the white man 
must be maintained even at the expense of his sense of hu- 
mor. 68 



63 



Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 368. 

M "I suppose, in the opinion of the average South African, the admix- 
ture in blood of the races is the worst thing that can happen, at least 
for the white race, and possibly for both ... he can see the degrada- 
tion of the white man, the ambiguous position of the children, often 
the resentment of the native in cases of miscegenation; . . ." Evans, 
Black and White in South East Africa, p. 223. See, also, Freraantle, 
The New Nation, pp. 217-18. 

85 Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 375. 

60 Evans, Black and White in South East Africa, p. 299. 

67 Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 378. 

68 "Sometimes the usual relations of employer and employed are re- 
versed, and a white man enters the service of a prosperous Kaffir. This 
makes no difference as respects their social intercourse, and I remember 



76 The Mulatto in the United States 

The attitude of the white man is one of aversion towards 
colored people. He dislikes and despises the black. The 
attitude of contempt is to be found in all classes though 
strongest in the rougher elements. The Dutch are more 
bitter than the English, and more disposed to treat the na- 
tive harshly. There is no community of ideas and no sym- 
pathy between the races. 69 "The black man accepts the 
superiority of the white man as a part of the order of na- 
ture." 70 He submits patiently to the stronger race. 

But there is no serious friction between the white and the 
black people of South Africa. The native is too far re- 
moved from the white man to appreciate or resent the white 
man's attitude. 71 The mixed-bloods, here as everywhere, 
chafe against the social ostracism from the white group with 
which it is their ambition to be identified, and resent the atti- 
tude of the white group which identifies them with the native 
side of their ancestry which they are anxious to conceal and 
forget. Speaking of the half-castes Fremantle says : 72 

... In varying degrees he possesses white blood. He 
is permanently conscious of the fact that the infusion 
of that blood differentiates him completely from the 
natives who surround him. He feels that he has a right 
to a definite place in the social structure of South 
Africa, and he is embittered by finding that no such 
place is accorded to him. He has a definite place in 
each Colony but, as has already been stated, he is sub- 
jected to different rules in the different Colonies. 
South Africa, as such, does not recognize him. And he, 

to have been told of a ease in which the white workman stipulated that 
his employer should address him as 'Boss.' " Bryce, Impressions of 
South Africa, p. 367. 
"Ibid., pp. 3G5-68. 

70 Ibid., p. 375. 

71 Ibid., p. 375. 

72 The New Nation, pp. 319-20. 



Mixed-Blood Races 77 

who ought to be a permanent support to the influence 
of white rule, is tempted to turn his face backwards 
to a more sympathetic understanding with that native 
population from which he is, in so large a part, de- 
rived. 

North American Indians 

The contact of the North European races with the North 
American Indians more often resulted in the extermination 
of the Indian by slaughter or disease, than in an amalgama- 
tion of the races. During the period of settlement and colo- 
nization, there generally existed a state of potential if not 
of actual warfare between the races. The Indian was dis- 
possessed and driven farther and farther into the interior, 
rather than absorbed into the new life of the country. 

However, there was from the first some intermingling of 
the blood of the races which has continued to the present 
day. The French mingled freely with the Algonquian tribes 
both on the coast and in the interior. They furnished 
fathers for the great group of present-day French-Cana- 
dians. The Catholic missionaries, especially in the interior, 
favored these unions and they took place to such an extent 
that to-day few French families in the Missouri-Illinois 
region are entirely free from any trace of Indian blood. 
Of the fifteen thousand persons of French-Canadian descent 
in Michigan, few are without some trace of Indian inter- 
mixture. 73 In Manitoba at the time of its admission to the 
Dominion, there were some ten thousand mixed-bloods, the 
result of the Hudson Bay Company's activities in the Cana- 
dian Northwest. A considerable per cent of the mixed- 
bloods of the Northwest are the descendants of English and 
Scotch fathers. The Iroquois are largely mixed with both 

73 Bureau of American Ethnology, Handbook of the American Indians. 
Part I, p. 913. 



78 The Mulatto in the United States 

French and English blood, an appreciable amount of which 
came from the captives in the wars of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries and from their tribal institution of 
adoption. In the Apache, Comanche, and other warlike 
tribes of the Southwest, is also some admixture of captive 
white blood. In such cases the offspring are, in a larger 
percentage of cases than is elsewhere true, the children of 
white mothers and Indian fathers. 74 

In the early days, the unions of the whites and Indians 
were usually temporary alliances formed and broken at the 
pleasure of the conquering white man. Almost exclusively 
they were unions between white men and Indian women. Oc- 
casionally, and much more frequently during the past half 
century, there have been alliances of a different sort. Edu- 
cated individuals of some Indian blood and whites occasion- 
ally have intermarried ; some of these unions have been 
between white women and men of Indian blood. In how far 
these mixed marriages have been dictated by economic mo- 
tives, it is of course not possible to say. 75 

At the present time the Indian population of the United 
States is about forty per cent mixed-bloods, and consider- 
ably over nine-tenths of the mixed-bloods are Indian-white 
crosses. The actual numbers and percentages are as fol- 
lows : 76 

Indian Population, Continental United States, 1910 

Per cent 
Racial Ancestry Number of Total 

Full blood 150,053 56.5 

74 See Handbook of the American Indians, Part I, pp. 913-14: 

75 Charles Alexander Eastman, "The North American Indian," Inter- 
Racial Problems, pp. 367-76. 

79 Indian Population in the United States and Alaska, United States 
Census 1910, Supplement 1915, p. 31. 



Mixed-Blood Races 79 









Per 


Cent 


Racial Ancestry 


Number 


of Total 


Mixed blood 


93,423 


35.2 




'White and Indian a 


88,030 


33.1 " 






Negro and Indian 


2,255 


0.8 




■4 


White, Negro and Indian 


1,793 


0.7 


- 




Other mixtures 


80 


0.1 






Unknown 


1,265 


0.5 




Not reported 


22,207 


8.3 


Total 


265,683 


100.0 



a Includes Mexican and Indian. 

More than four-fifths of those in the "not reported" group 
are scattered through the white population and the great 
majority are probably individuals of mixed blood. 77 More- 
over, the degree of the intermixture is appreciably greater 
than appears on the face of the table. Of the total number 
of mixed white and Indian blood about twenty per cent are 
less than half white, nearly twenty-eight per cent are one- 
half Indian and one-half white, while approximately one-half 
of all the mixed-bloods are more than one-half white. About 
four-fifths of the total number of mixed-bloods are at least 
one-half white. 78 

Degree of Mixture Number Per cent 

Less than one-half white 18,169 20.6 

One-half white, one-half Indian 24,353 27.7 

More than one-half white 43,937 49.9 

In regard to the geographical distribution of the mixed- 
bloods, the report gives the following table : 79 

"Ibid., p. 31. 
™Ibid., p. 35. 
19 Ibid., p. 32. 






80 The Mulatto in the United States 









Per cent 


State 


Full-blood 


Mixed-blood 


mixed 


Arizona 


27,087 


414 


1.4 


Oklahoma 


25,887 


44,288 


62.6 


New Mexico 


20,085 


175 


0.9 


South Dakota 


13,247 


5,408 


28.7 


California 


10,493 


4,217 


28.1 


Montana 


6,204 


3,895 


37.5 


Washington 


6,770 


3,019 


30.6 


Wisconsin 


5,249 


4,330 


45.1 


Nevada 


4,287 


508 


10.3 


Minnesota 


3,859 


4,886 


55.8 


Michigan 


3,528 


3,218 


47.6 


Oregon 


2,901 


1,668 


36.4 


Utah 


2,900 


105 


3.4 


Idaho 


. 2,864 


514 


15.0 


New York 


2,850 


2,028 


38.9 


Nebraska 


2,294 


939 


28.4 


North Dakota 


2,499 


3,561 


57.7 


Wyoming 


1,174 


284 


19.5 


North Carolina 


1,394 


5,855 


80.3 


Mississippi 


1,077 


90 


7.7 


Colorado 


718 


50 


6.5 


Kansas 


516 


889 


62.9 



It is of importance to note that the proportion of mixed- 
bloods is high in the regions where the total Indian popula- 
tion is small as compared to the whites, or where it is scat- 
tered through the white population ; and that the proportion 
of full-bloods is high in the regions with a large total Indian 
population, or where the Indian tribes live in relative isola- 
tion. 

The Hopi Indians of Arizona, for example, are 99.9 per 
cent pure, while the Croatan Indians of North Carolina are 
7.8 per cent pure. The former is an isolated group of some 
2,009 ; they are but little in contact with the whites. They 



1 



Mixed-Blood Races 81 

live in a region sparsely populated by the whites. The 
Croatans, a small group of composite origin, have been in 
contact with the whites and Negroes since the colonial days, 
in a region of relatively dense white population. 

The St. Regis, a tribe of mixed Iroquoian origin living 
in the state of New York, are the second most mixed 
group. 80 Out of a total of 1219, there are 1140 mixed- 
bloods. The Navajo, a large nomadic tribe of New Mexico 
and Arizona, is next to the Hopi in the purity of their blood. 
Out of a total of 22,304, there are but 99 mixed-bloods. 81 

Oklahoma is the only notable exception to the rule that 
the number of mixed-bloods is inversely proportional to the 
number of full-bloods in the region. With a large number 
of Indians, it also has a small proportion of full-bloods. In 
explanation of this anomaly the report says : 82 

. . . This low proportion in Oklahoma is no doubt 
due in part to the fact that the possession of valuable 
lands by the Indians encourages intermarriages be- 
tween whites and Indians, and that persons with very 
little Indian blood are anxious to establish their 
claims as members of the Indian tribes, in order that 
they may be entitled to participate in the distribution 
of lands and moneys belonging to the Five Civilized 
Tribes in Oklahoma. 

It should also be noted that some, at least, of the Okla- 
homa tribes were enormously mixed before being settled in 
their present home; also that the number of white people 
is relatively large in the Oklahoma region. 

80 Indian Population in the United States and Alaska, United States 
Census 1910, Supplement 1915, p. 84. 

81 Ibid., p. 78. 

82 Ibid., p. 32. 



82 The Mulatto in the United States 

The Negroes and the Indians of most tribes have freely 
intermixed. There never has been any legal barrier to their 
intermarriage and positively there exists some fundamental 
grounds of sympathy between them. In the early days, they 
were frequently slaves together associating on terms of so- 
cial equality. In these cases, the Indians eventually dis- 
appeared by absorption into the larger body of blacks, and 
were counted with the Negro slaves. Throughout the slave 
period, there is occasional mention made of slaves of mixed 
Indian and Negro blood. Many of the broken coast tribes 
have been completely absorbed into the Negro race. 83 All 
these mixtures, however, now appear in the American mu- 
latto rather than in the American Indian groups. 

In certain of the tribes, notably those who formerly lived 
in the Gulf States and on the Atlantic seaboard, there is 
a large admixture of Negro blood. The five civilized 
tribes 84 were large slave holders and, at the close of the 
Civil War, they were required to free their Negro slaves and 
admit them to equal Indian citizenship. There were over 
twenty thousand of these adopted Negro citizens in the five 
tribes in addition to those of various degrees of intermix- 
ture. 

The number of Indians who reported Negro blood was 
doubtless far less than the actual number. 85 The degree of 
Negro blood in those reporting is relatively very much less 
than the amount of white blood in the Indian-white crosses. 

83 Handbook of the American Indians, Part I, p. 914. 
• 84 "The Seminoles at this time, 1834, owned perhaps 200 slaves, their 
people had intermarried with the maroons, . . ." Minnie Moore-Will- 
son, The Seminoles of Florida, p. 14. 

65 "The number of Negro and Indian mixed-bloods reported, 9,255, is 
probably an understatement, owing to disinclination to admit Negro 
blood." Indian Pojmlation in the United States and Alaska, United 
States Census 1910, Supplement 1915, p. 38. 



1 





Per cent 


Number 


of total 


717 


31.8 


729 


32.3 


780 


34.6 


29 


1.3 



Mixed-Blood Races 83 

Amount of Negro Blood in the Indian-Negro Crosses 86 

Degree of Mixture 

Less than one-half Negro 
One-half Negro, one-half Indian 
More than one-half Negro 
Unknown proportions 

In all cases the fertility of the mixed unions is higher 
than the unions of the full-blood Indians. The greatest 
amount of sterility is found in the marriages between the 
full-bloods ; in cases of miscegenation it is considerably less 
common. The per cent of issueless marriages decreases di- 
rectly with the decrease in the amount of Indian blood in the 
married couple. In cases of fertile marriages the number of 
children is also less in the Indian marriages than in those 
that were mixed. The marriages between mixed-blood Ne- 
groes and Indians show the highest degree of fertility. 87 

Such study as has been made of the Indian-white mixtures 
in America, shows the mixed-blood race to be physically 
superior to the Indian type. Boaz 88 in a study of the 
French-Indian mixtures, found the offspring to exceed both 
parents in height, to be more variable than the Indian par- 
ents and also to be more fertile. "We observe in the mixed- 
blood race that the fertility and the laws of growth are 
affected, that the variability of the race is increased, and 
that the resultant stature of the mixed-blood race exceeds 
that of both parents." 89 In other respects, notably in 
the color of skin, texture of the hair and the facial features, 



88 Ibid., p. 38. 

87 Ibid., pp. 15T-58. 



88 Franz Boaz, "The Half-Breed Indian," Popular Science Monthly, 
Vol. 45, pp. 761-70. See, also, Eugen Fischer, Die Rehobother Bastards 
und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen, 
Ibid., p. 766. 



89 



84 The Mulatto in the United States 

the mixed-blood race is much nearer to the Indian than to 
the white ancestry. In the case of the Negro intermixture, 
the offspring incline much more to the Indian than to the 
Negro type. 90 

In general, the mixture of other blood with the Indian 
has not given rise to a special racial problem. The in- 
creasing amount of white blood in the Indian race simply 
has decreased the gap between the races, not by the cre- 
ation of an intermediate caste, but by a modification of 
the temperament and appearance of the Indian group. 91 
The mixed-blood Indian, dressed in the clothes of civilized 
man, loses most of his distinctive Indian characteristics. 
Moreover, a trace of Indian blood is not considered a taint 
which it is necessary to conceal and of which the individual 
need feel ashamed. As a consequence, the man of mixed 
Indian-white ancestry who desires to do so, may escape 
from the Indian group and identify himself with and become 
lost in the culture group. 

Most frequently, however, the half-breeds have elected to 
remain with the mother race and to become the leaders of 
the race. The Five Civilized Tribes are to-day far more 
Anglo-Saxon than they are Indian. The Wyandots have 
not a single full-blood. For over a century, to take a single 
example to illustrate the status of the half-breed, every 
leading man of the Cherokee Nation has had more white than 

80 Handbook of the American Indians, Part I, p. 365. 

01 Possibly also by causing his intellectual advance. At any rate "The 
families that have made Cherokee history were nearly all of this mixed 
descent. The Doughertys, Galpins, and Adairs were from Ireland; the 
Rosses, Vanns, and Mclntoshes, like the McGillivrays and Graysons 
among the Creeks, were of Scottish origin; the Waffords and others were 
Americans from Carolina or Georgia, and the father of Sequoya was a 
[Pennsylvania?] German. . . ." See James Mooney, "Myths of the 
Cherokee," 19th Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Part 1, 
p. 83. 



Mixed-Blood Races 85 

Indian blood. John Ross, their most noted man, was one- 
eighth Indian and seven-eighths white. 92 

Where a race problem has appeared, it has been due in 
most cases to an antipathy toward the Negro and Negro 
mixtures, or to an effort on the part of these mixtures to 
escape classification with the Negro race. The Croatan 
Indians of North Carolina, a mixed-blood race of Negro and 
white around an Indian nucleus whose identity has been 
completely lost, were for years classed with the free Ne- 
groes. They persistently refused to accept the classifica- 
tion or to attend the Negro schools or churches, claiming 
special privileges on the ground that they were descended 
from native tribes and early settlers. In 1885, they were 
given separate legal existence on the baseless theory that 
they were descended from Raleigh's lost colony of Croatan, 
and separate school provision was made for them. 93 In some 
of the more distinctly Indian tribes, notably the Cherokee 
and Osage, there is a bitter rivalry between the mixed- 
bloods and the full-bloods, and they have formed rival fac- 
tions. The Cherokees, too, draw a color line against their 
Negro citizens and refuse to intermarry with them. 

63 Handbook of the American Indians, Part I, p. 914. 

93 They are a mixture of wasted Indian tribes, forest rovers, runaway- 
slaves and other Negroes. There are a number of other similar groups, 
the "Redbones" of South Carolina, the "Melungeons" of West Virginia 
and East Tennessee and the "Moors" of Delaware, but like the "Cro- 
atan Indians" they are rather mulatto than Indian mixtures. See Ibid., 
p. 365. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE MULATTO : THE KEY TO THE RACE PROBLEM 

THE foregoing summary review of the origin and status 
of the chief half-caste races has necessarily been brief 
and more or less unsatisfactory. It does not include a 
sketch of all such groups, and makes no pretense of being 
an adequate treatment of any. 

Little more can be done, however, in the present state of 
knowledge concerning these peoples. Of the score or more 
of mixed-blood races scarcely one has been made the sub- 
ject of objective scientific study. 1 The whole work on this 
important subject remains to be done. Any wide observa- 
tion or comparison, or any thoroughgoing analysis of a 
single situation, has not been made. 

The little that is known concerning most of these racial 
groups comes from the reports of travelers and officials who 

1 Dr. Eugen Fischer's Die Behobother Bastards und das Ba-stardie- 
rungs problem beim Menschen is the only adequate, objective, scientific 
study that has been made of the amalgamation of two diverse racial 
groups. Fischer's general conclusion is to the effect that the interbreed- 
ing of the first generation of bastards and their crossing with the pure 
parent races have given rise to a group in which the physical charac- 
ters of the pure-blood parent races reappear in endless new combinations 
and that no new race with approximately uniform characters has arisen. 
On the mental side the bastards show an intellectual capacity and varia- 
bility superior to that of the Negro side of their ancestry but are as 
lacking in the mental energy and fixedness of the European as is the 
full-blood primitive group. Fischer's general position would seem to be 
that two diverse races cannot amalgamate to a new ethnic unity. See 
note 6, p. 13 above. 

86 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 87 

are dealing primarily with other matters. These observers 
frequently disagree concerning even the most obvious objec- 
tive facts. Their opportunity to observe generally is limited ; 
they see one phase of a situation, seldom the whole. More- 
over, individual interest determines what the non-scientific 
observer of a social situation will see. His preconceptions 
lead him to see the things for which he is looking. His prej- 
udice may prevent him from giving an unbiased report of 
what he observes if, indeed, it does not actually prevent him 
from seeing certain facts of first-rate importance. Sweep- 
ing generalizations are made on the basis of the most par- 
tial and inadequate observation. Seldom is any account 
taken of the part played by different factors at work in 
the situation. The amental influences behind the observed 
conditions are never gotten at and there is seldom a con- 
sciousness on the part of the writers that such influences 
exist. 

On the basis of such data as are available, the object has 
been to give in brief space as accurate a statement as pos- 
sible concerning the main facts of the miscegenation of the 
advanced and backward races for the light that such a com- 
parison w T ould throw on the mulatto type and problem ex- 
isting in the United States. Incomplete as are the data, and 
tentative as the conclusions must consequently be, enough 
has been said to reveal the fact that the mulatto is the key 
to the racial situation. Any scientific study of a race prob- 
lem that fails to take account of the man of mixed ancestry 
and the special and important part he plays, falls short of 
a complete anatysis of the situation. Any program of ra- 
cial adjustment that does not recognize and provide for this 
special factor fails at the most vital point. Broadly speak- 
ing, the review seems to bear out the conclusion that in its 
acute and troublesome form, the "race problem" is the prob- 



The Mulatto in the United States 

lein of the mulatto. 

It remains for this section to summarize in general terms 
certain facts in regard to the origin, growth, and status of 
the mixed-blood races ; to point out certain similarities in 
the psychological type developed, and to show the sociologi- 
cal problem that the type creates. 

In every case the half-caste races have arisen as the 
result of illicit relations between the men of the superior 
and the women of the inferior race. 2 In India it was the 
Portuguese and later the English men who mixed with the 
native women ; in Greenland it was the Danish men and the 
native women ; on the Labrador coast it was the English 
fishermen and the native women ; in Brazil it was the Portu- 
guese immigrant men with the native and later with the 
Negro women; in other parts of South America and the 
Spanish West Indies, it was the Spanish males with the 
native and later with the Negro females; in Haiti it was 
the French settlers with the Negro women, and so it has 
been in all other cases. There is no mixed-blood race which 
is the result of intermarriage between culturally unequal 
races and none w T here the mothers of the half-castes are not 
of the culturally inferior race. 

While all the advanced races have, under certain condi- 
tions, mixed with the women of the lower races they have 
not done so with anything like equal readiness. Of the 
white races, the Spanish and the Portuguese have mixed 
most easily and in largest numbers. They have mixed, 
moreover, with almost equal readiness with the Malay, the 
American Indian, and the African Negress; and with less 
repugnance than any other people with whom these lower 
races have come in contact. "They had never acquired, or 

2 Sir Harry H. Johnston, "Racial Problems and the Congress of Races, 
Contemporary Review, Vol. 100, p. 159. 









The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 89 

had lost as the result of experience, any aversion to race 
mixture." 3 The French mixed readily with the American 
Indians but in contact with the Negroes in Haiti they 
mixed relatively little. The English have crossed with all 
the lower races, but much more slowly than have the Latin 
peoples. Moreover, the English mix less readily with the 
Negroes than with the Indians, and more slowly with these 
than with certain of the brown races. 4 Bryce summarizes 
the situation in these words : 5 

. . . Roughly speaking ... we may say that while 
all the races of the same, or a similar, colour inter- 
marry freely, those of one colour intermarry very 
little with those of another. This is most marked as 
between the white and the black races. The various 
white races are, however, by no means equally averse 
to such unions. Among the Arabs and Turks the 
sense of repulsion from negroes is weakest, . . . The 
South European races, though disinclined to such un- 

8 A. G. Keller, Colonization, pp. 104, 216, 219. See, also, H. C. Morris, 
The History of Colonization, Vol. 1, p. 249. 

4 B. L. Putnam Weale [Weale is the pseudonym of Mr. B. L. Simp- 
son], "The Conflict of Color," World's Work, Vol. 19, p. 12,328, points out 
the same preference on the part of the Chinese. They mate readily 
with "many varieties of brown maidens" but avoid the black. See, also, 
U. G. Weatherly, "A World Wide Color Line," Popular Science Monthly, 
Vol. 79, p. 480. 

6 James Bryce, Relations of Advanced and Backward Races, pp. 18- 
19. See, also, Bryce, "Migrations of the Races of Men," Contemporary 
Review, Vol. 62, p. 130. ". . . Whether in each case of dispersion 
the migrating population becomes fused with that which it finds, depends 
chiefly on the difference between the level of civilization of the two 
races." Luis Cabrera, "The Mexican Revolution — Its Causes, Purposes 
and Results," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
Science, Supplement, Jan. 1917, p. 5, states the order of ease with which 
civilized races fuse with the Mexican mixed-blood race as follows: 1. 
Spanish and Italian, 2. German, 3. French, and 4. American and Eng- 
lish. The first two races "nearly always" blend; the last two "hardly 



ever." 



90 The Mulatto in the United States 

ions, do not wholly eschew them. ... In modern times 
the Spanish settlers in the Antilles and South America, 
and the Portuguese in Brazil, as well as on the East 
and West coasts of Africa, have formed many unions 
with negro women, as the Spaniards have done with 
the Malayan Tagals in the Philippines, and the Por- 
tuguese with the Hindus in Malabar. There is to-day 
a negro strain in many of the whites of Cuba, and a 
still stronger one in the whites of Brazil. The aver- 
sion to color reaches its maximum among the Teutons. 
The English in North America and the West Indies 
did, indeed, during the days of slavery, become the 
parents of a tolerably large mixed population, as did 
the Dutch in South Africa. But they scarcely ever 
intermarried with the free coloured people: ... So 
the English in India have felt a like aversion to mar- 
riages with native women, and even such illicit con- 
nections as were not rare a century ago are now sel- 
dom found. 

Where a white race comes into contact with the so- 
called "red" or "yellow" race . . . the sense of re- 
pulsion is much less pronounced. The English settlers 
intermarry, though less frequently than the French 
did, with the aborigines of America. . . . The Span- 
iards have been still less fastidious. All over Central 
and South America they have become commingled with 
the aborigines, especially, as was natural, with the 
more advanced tribes. . . . 

Another element that conditions the amount of miscegena- 
tion that takes place between the members of two divergent 
races is the class of the superior race that comes into con- 
tact with the native race. In most of the early contacts of 
the white race with the darker races, the white race has been 
represented by its adventurer and outcast classes. In Cen- 

8 "Most race crossing has occurred on the outskirts of civilization, . . ." 
Earl Finch, "The Effects of Racial Miscegenation," Inter-Racial Prob- 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 91 

tral and South America, the adventurers and the clergy 
were reinforced by convicts sentenced to death or mutila- 
tion who had their sentences commuted on condition that 
they emigrate to the colonies. Greenland was practically 
a Danish penal colony with a forced immigration of orphan 
boys to recruit the teaching force and the inferior clergy. 
South Africa was made the dumping ground for Asiatic 
convicts. Portugal unloaded on her Brazilian colony not 
only her convicts but her prostitutes as well. Aside from 
the criminal and the vicious, however, the military and the 
adventurer classes are hardly more typical of the moral 
sense of a community, but they usually have been the first 
representatives of the superior race with whom the nature 
peoples have come in contact. 

Of more importance, perhaps, than either race or class 
considerations is the matter of the presence or the absence 
of women of the higher race. In the absence of their own 
women, men of all divisions of the white race have inter- 
mixed, though not with equal readiness, with the women of 
the lower races. Where women have been present some in- 
termixture has still gone on, but never in the wholesale way 
that characterizes the trading, as distinguished from the 
settlement, colony. It is to this fact — the presence or ab- 
sence of women of the culture race — that Keller seems in- 
clined to attribute the differences in the amount of inter- 
mixture with the native races in the North American and 
the South American colonies. White women were present 
in the former ; and few in number, or entirely absent, in the 
latter. 7 

Urns, p. 111. See, also, Felix von Luschan, "Anthropological View of 
Race," Inter-Racial Problems, p. 23. 

7 Colonization, p. 14. See, also, E. A. Ross, South of Panama, pp. 
109 ff. 



92 The Mulatto in the United States 

: 

Comparison is likewise challenged in respect to mar- 
riage and the family. The fundamental factors which 
rendered the conditions of the tropical colonies so dif- 
ferent from those, say, of the New England settle- 
ments, were the great preponderance of males, and the 
feeble economic efficiency of such females as were pres- 
ent. The former factor led to formal celibacy, inter- 
mixture of races, and aberrations all but unknown in 
societies of the other type, — all this amounting to 
a negation of matrimony in the sense characteristic of 
the temperate colony. The other factor, economic in- 
efficiency, minimized the importance of woman's status ; 
the materfamilias had no such independent and influ- 
ential position in the tropics as in the cooler regions. 
And where woman was absent or of little significance, 
there could be little of the family life and solidarity 
characteristic of many settlement colonies. . . . 

With the increase of women and the consequent equalizing 
of the sexes of the white race, the miscegenation with the 
native women everywhere has tended to decrease. But the 
coming of women, usually as the members of immigrating 
families, has meant, also, a change in the class of men who 
were immigrating to the colony. It has indicated that the 
settler and the home seeker was displacing the adventurer 
so that a difference in the sexual relations of the races is 
to be expected quite apart from whatever influence the pres- 
ence of women might have. 

It is sometimes held that the institution of slavery was 
responsible for the origin of the mixed-blood races through 
the compulsory concubinage of the slave women by the mas- 
ter class. But mixed-blood races have arisen where the in- 
stitution of slavery has not prevailed. The North American 
Indians were never successfully enslaved, yet they have in- 
termixed with ever} 7 other race with whom they have come 
in contact. The same fact is to be noted in other regions 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 93 

Slavery did not exist in Greenland, nor in the Philippines, 
nor in India or elsewhere in Asia. The simple fact of the 
case seems to be that the women of the lower races every- 
where seek sex relations with the men of the superior race 
or caste. Ratzel 8 comments upon "the ease with which 
Malay women form transitory alliances with foreigners," 
and adds that "nearly all the so-called Chinese women in 
Banca are half-breeds from Malayan mothers." Keller 9 
says of the Eskimo women that "illicit relations with white 
men are rather a glory than a disgrace." Of the Indian 
women, Lee 10 says "she is the seducer and it is the proudest 
moment of her life when she has allied herself with a man 
of a superior race," while Crooke 11 points out the fact 
that a failure on the part of girls of certain castes to at- 
tract the attention and have sex relations with men of 
a higher class ruins their chances to secure husbands in 
their own group, and that for a girl to claim such an honor 
falsely is legal grounds for divorce on the part of the out- 
raged husband. 12 It seems to be the usual situation every- 
where that the women of the lower races or the lower castes 
desire, seek, feel honored by the attention of the higher class 
men, and are enormously proud of their light-skinned, half- 
caste children. The effect of slavery, so far as any effect 
can be shown, seems to be to lessen the amount of inter- 
mixture by separating and restraining the vicious elements, 
and so preventing an indiscriminate sexual relation. 

Once started, the half-caste races everywhere increase 

8 Friedrich Ratzel, The History of Mankind, Vol. 1, p. 438. 

9 Colonization, p. 515. 

10 Mary Helen Lee, The Eurasian: A Social Problem, p. 5. 

11 W. Crooke, "The Stability of Caste and Tribal Groups in India," 
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 44, pp. 270-81. 

12 Edward Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, pp. 65-67, 
76-77, 81. 



94< The Mulatto in the United States 

rapidly in numbers and always at the expense of the back- 
ward race. Illicit relations between the half-breed women 
and the men of the superior race are the normal situation 
after the mixed-blood race has become sufficiently large to 
allow the forces of sexual selection to operate. The half- 
breed men in their turn prey upon the women of the pure- 
blood native race. Both result in additions to the mulatto 
group. Moreover, the marriage of the mixed-blood indi- 
viduals is in nearly every case with their own or a lighter 
color, hence the natural, legitimate increase is normal or 
nearly so. 13 

In some cases, especially after the earlier crosses have 
produced a somewhat choicer type of female, there has come 
to be some intermarriage. A small number of Danes form 
temporary marriage unions with the mixed-blood Eskimo 
women in Greenland, though the women and children are de- 
serted when the man retires from official life. The unions 
of the Chinese with the native women in the Philippines is 
a form of marriage very similar to that practiced by the 
Danes and Eskimo women of Greenland. There is some 
intermarriage between the middle-class or low-class w T hites 
and the mixed-breed races of Latin America. In Brazil the 
wealthy and near-white mulattoes and metis sometimes 
marry immigrant and other white women. Occasionally 
among the Indian tribes in the United States, are to be 



13 



It would be quite normal except for the illegitimate children that 
the women of the mixed-blood race bear to white men. These, how- 
ever, cannot all be counted as substitutes for children of a mixed-blood 
father. They are usually born before the girl forms a regular sexual 
union with one of her own class and are in general to be looked upon as 
extra-matrimonial additions to the class. Such relations seem generally 
not to be a bar to the girl forming a regular matrimonial alliance with 
one of her own class and in some cases at least gives her a decided 
prestige. 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 95 

found white men and women married to wealthy Indians and 
half-breeds. 

In most of these situations if not in all, intermarriage is 
the exception and not the rule. Where it takes place, the 
compelling motive is to be looked for in the economic status 
of the colored man or woman, in the scarcity of women of 
the advanced race, or in a combination of the two. In all 
other situations, mixed marriages are very rare though iso- 
lated cases occur in all countries. All in all, the number 
of mixed marriages that occur in any country with an ad- 
vanced race and a backward race in the population, is very 
trivial as compared to the amount of amalgamation that 
takes place between the races outside the marriage bond. 

In general, the half-breed children are disowned by their 
fathers though this is not always the case. Where the 
unions take the form of a fairly permanent marriage, as 
with some of the Danish-Eskimo and many of the Chinese- 
Malay unions, the offspring are acknowledged and cared 
for. The Chinaman is even said to be inordinately proud 
of his half-breed progeny. In the colonial days, the Span- 
ish and the Portuguese in South America in some cases 
acknowledged their mixed-blood offspring by the Negro and 
native women, and provided for their education and train- 
ing. In general, however, the child followed the status of 
the mother. 14 The French in Canada in the colonial days 
often showed much fondness for their offspring by the In- 
dian women. In Haiti their unions with the Negro women 
were of a casual sort ; the fathers showed little concern for 
their mulatto progeny. The British never have acknowl- 



14 



"The amalgamation of the negroes by the Mohammedans is facili- 
tated particularly by the institution of polygamy, the conquerors taking 
native wives, and raising their children as members of their own fam- 
ily." Franz Boaz, The Mind of Primitive Man, p. 15. 



96 The Mulatto in the United States 

edged their offspring by a lower race. In India and the 
sea-port cities of Asia, the offspring in many cases are the 
result of a casual meeting; the father may not know his 
offspring or even know of their existence. In general it may 
be said that individual fathers, more frequently in some 
places than in others, have acknowledged and cared for 
their half-caste children but that this has at no time or 
place been the rule. 

The status of the mixed-blood race tends to differ from 
that of either of the parent races. It is not everywhere the 
same, however, and the status of a single group is not the 
same at different times. The operation of the two prime 
factors — the racial differences and the cultural differences 
of the pure-blood groups — is modified by historical factors 
and by the prevailing social situation. 

There are almost infinite gradations of both color and 
culture. There are, however, four different combinations 
in which these factors may appear. The two races in con- 
tact in a given geographical situation may be practically 
alike both as to color and as to culture. There may be an 
essential equality of culture, but a wide diversity in color 
or other physical characteristics. They may be widely 
different as to cultural development, yet essentially alike as 
to color and other ethnic characters. Finally they may di- 
verge both in cultural and in racial characteristics. The 
inter-racial situation differs in each case and the status of 
the half-caste race likewise differs. The first situation ordi- 
narily docs not give rise to a lasting racial problem. The 
third case may or may not do so. In the second, a char- 
acteristic form of the race problem appears. It is in the 
fourth, however, that the problem emerges in its most 
characteristic present day form and presents the most 
troublesome social situation. Each of the phases will be 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 97 

noted in turn. 

Of the innumerable bastard races produced by the com- 
mingling of primitive groups, none seems to have acquired 
a distinct status in the community life. Where there ex- 
ist no fundamental differences in culture and no wide ethnic 
divergence, there soon comes to be an intermingling of the 
cultures of the two groups in contact, or a cultural assim- 
ilation of the one by the other. As friendly intercourse 
increases, the original separation on race lines gives way 
little by little to a class division. The individuals of mixed 
ancestry who practically always appear are a help in this 
direction. They serve as a tie between the originally hostile 
groups and their lack of a distinctive appearance militates 
against their being made into a special class in the com- 
munity. In the process of racial amalgamation, the group 
of lesser numerical strength presently loses itself within the 
larger — becomes an integral part of the community — with- 
out greatly altering the ethnic type of the larger group. 
Where the numerical strength of the two groups is more 
nearly equal, the intermixture of the two races leads to the 
formation of a homogeneous hybrid race in which the dis- 
tinctive features of the parent races blend and disappear. 
Between closely related ethnic groups, as different branches 
of the same race, intermarriage is governed by much the 
same rules as govern the marriage of individuals within 
the same branch. It is a question of association and of 
sufficient time to allow of mutual understanding and appre- 
ciation. 

Oppenheimer, 15 discussing the formation of the primitive 
state through the subjugation of one group by another 
and their gradual reduction to an ethnic and cultural unity, 

"Franz Oppenheimer, The State; Its History and Development 
Viewed Sociologically , pp. 80-81. 



98 The Mulatto in the United States 

says: 

. . . The two groups, separated to begin with, and 
then united on one territory, are at first merely laid 
along side one another like a mechanical mixture, as 
the term is used in chemistry, until gradually they 
become more and more of a "chemical combination." 
They intermingle, unite, amalgamate to unity, in cus- 
toms and habits, in sjjeech and worship. Soon the 
bonds of relationship unite the upper and the lower 
strata. In nearly all cases the master class picks the 
handsomest virgins from the subject races for its con- 
cubines. A race of bastards thus develops, sometimes 
taken into the ruling class, sometimes rejected, and 
then because of the blood of the masters in their veins, 
becoming the born leaders of the subject race. In form 
and content the primitive state is completed. 

Where each of the two races in contact possesses a cul- 
ture and a civilization, yet differ markedly in physical ap- 
pearance, the mixed-blood race tends to become an outcast 
group. A distinctive physical appearance makes it impos- 
sible for the hybrids to pass as individuals of either race. 
They cannot rise, as a group, superior to either of the par- 
ent races. Both races despise and reject them. 

This appears to be the status of the Eurasian of India 
and of the various European-Asiatic half-castes. The Ori- 
entals, as the East Indians, have a civilization in which they 
believe, and a pride of race that is often more intolerant 
than that of the Caucasian. They do not consciously ad- 
mit the superiority of European culture. The civilizations 
are not serially arranged ; one is not so much higher than 
the other as that they are different civilizations. In this 
situation there is no place for the half-castes. They are 
neither Asiatic nor European. They are accepted by 
neither race and they can rise superior to neither. 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 99 

Where the two peoples, essentially alike as to ethnic char- 
acters but different as to cultural development are brought 
into close contact and association, a permanent race prob- 
lem may or may not arise. Even though color and other 
physical features are not sufficiently divergent to create, 
or serve as a basis for, an antipathy ; the peoples may be 
so tempermentally constituted as to make it impossible for 
them to arrive at any mutually satisfactory working rela- 
tions. Their interests may so clash as to keep them even 
from approaching anything like kindly feeling and unity 
of purpose. Their political ideas may diverge. Their re- 
ligious beliefs may differ. Their distinctive manners, cus- 
toms, and habits of life may be at variance. The differ- 
ences raay be so marked that toleration may be impossible 
and accommodation come about only by the elimination of 
the one or the other or a more or less complete separation 
along racial lines. The established customs and the habits 
of thought and action, differences in speech, dress, religion, 
and the like that set them off as a distinct people, may be 
nursed and deified and every effort made to prevent assimi- 
lation of the one by the other. This, however, is the prob- 
lem of the immigrant ; it is the problem of nationalities. It, 
for the most part, falls outside the present discussion. The 
half-races that appear, differ too slightly from either of 
the parent races for them to be easily distinguishable. In- 
dividuals may therefore pass in either group and be judged 
according to their personal ability and worth. They do 
not represent a type. Individual initiative and opportunity 
are the things required to raise the individual to a higher 
class. 

When color differences coincide with differences in culture 
levels, then color becomes symbolic and each individual is 
automatically classified by the racial uniform he wears. 



100 The Mulatto in the United States 

If the proportions of the two groups be such that the racial 
purity and cultural traits of one group are potentially 
threatened, the initial conflict may settle down into a 
chronic state of racial contempt or hatred. The more 
widely the races differ in appearance, culture, language, re- 
ligion, anything that serves to distinguish them, the more 
bitter will be the feeling existing between them. The more 
unalterable the differences, the more permanent will be their 
mutually hostile attitude. The greater the danger the back- 
ward group is felt to be to civilized standards, the greater 
will be the intolerance of the culture group. 16 

Where the two groups in a racial situation thus have 
differed widely both in culture and in color, they everywhere 
have tended toward an adjustment on the basis of superi- 
ority and subordination. The Portuguese and the Spanish 
enslaved or exterminated the natives of the West Indies and 
on the mainland of South America. In the Philippines, the 
Spanish subjugated the native Moros. The Danes reduced 
the Eskimos to a dependent status. The settlers of North 
America exterminated the Indians or drove them into the 
interior as did the English settlers in Australia. The Negro 
has been reduced to the status of a slave by every people 
with whom the race has come in contact. 

Where the status of one race is absolutely inferior to that 
of the other and the social separation complete, the adjust- 
ment of the races is frequently a harmonious one. The ac- 
commodation of the races under a slave regime, for exam- 
ple, is in general marked by a singular lack of racial fric- 
tion. Under the condition of freedom with its consequent 
greater differentiation within the ranks of the backward 
group, the racial superiority and inferiority become less 

19 See Bryce, Relations of Advanced and Backward Races. See, also, 
AVeatherly, Popular Science Monthly, pp. 478-79. 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 101 

absolute and the social separation less complete. Friction 
arises and prejudice becomes active when, and to the ex- 
tent that, the unlike races come into association and com- 
petition. 

Where there has been this absolute separation of supe- 
rior and inferior groups, the half-castes, as a class, have 
tended to acquire a distinct status in the life of the com- 
munity. This status is, in general, above that of the col- 
ored race, and inferior to the position occupied by the dom- 
inant race. They everywhere tended to become a middle 
class between the races and a connecting link between the 
extremes of the population. In the Philippines, the Spanish 
mestizo stood midway, socially, between the parent ele- 
ments. 17 The Chinese-Moro half-breed was superior to the 
Moro and not markedly inferior to the Chinese. The same 
midway position was reached by the mulatto races of the 
English possessions, 18 the metis of Brazil, 19 the mixed-blood 
race of South Africa 20 and the various Indian-white mix- 
tures in Mexico and in Central and South America. 21 

This tendency of the mixed-blood group to rise superior 
to their racial status generally has been modified by the cir- 
cumstances of the social situation. In South Africa, be- 
cause of their numerical insignificance and because of the 
racial intolerance of the small white group, 22 the tendency 

"Carl Crow, "What About the Filipinos?", World's Work, Vol. 26, 
p. 519. 

18 W. P. Livingstone, "The West-Indian and American Negro," North 
American Review, Vol. 185, p. 646. 

19 Jean Baptiste de Lacerda, "The Metis, or Half Breeds, of Brazil," 
Inter-Racial Problems, p. 381. 

30 Maurice S. Evans, Black and White in South East Africa; A Study 
in Sociology, pp. 298 ff. 

21 James Bryce, South America; Observations and Impressions, pp. 
481, 492. Ross, South of Panama, pp. 29-30, 40-41, 92, 111. 

M This intolerant attitude finds its explanation in the fact that the 



102 The Mulatto in the United States 

was to thrust them back upon the lower race. In Brazil and 
in general throughout Spanish America, the numerical 
strength of the mixed-blood group, in the presence of a 
relatively weak sense of either race or national pride on the 
part of the ruling group, has enabled them to claim social 
recognition from the whites. In some cases, they appar- 
ently have risen to the upper class standards ; in other 
cases, they have debased the higher standards to Ahe level 
of the mongrel group. In Jamaica the insignificant number 
of the ruling race has counseled the "divide and rule" policy. 
The natural tendency of the mulatto to rise above the blacks 
has been fostered, while a rigid separation from the whites 
has been maintained. Thus they occupy a distinct middle- 
class status in the community life. 23 

Psychologically, the mulatto is an unstable type. 

In the thinking of the white race, the mulattoes generally 
are grouped with the backward race and share with them 
the contempt and dislike of the dominant group. Nowhere 
are they accepted as social equals. The discrimination va- 
ries all the way from the more or less successfully concealed 
contempt of the Brazilian white for the socially ambitious 

whites were a small, isolated group in the presence of an overwhelming 
number of primitive peoples. "That cry, which unceasingly for genera- 
tions has rung out from the Boer woman's elbow-chair, 'My children, 
never forget that you are white men! Do always as you have seen 
your father and mother do !' was no cry of weak conservatism, fearful of 
change; it was the embodiment of the passionate determination of a 
great, little people, not to lose the little it possessed and so sink in the 
scale of being. To laugh at the conservatism of the Boer is to laugh 
at the man who, floating above a whirlpool, clings fiercely with one hand 
to the only outstretching rock he can reach, and who will not relax his 
hold on it by one finger, till he has found something firmer to grasp." 
Olive Schrcincr, "The African Boer," Cosmopolitan, Vol. 29, p. 602. 

23 Their caste feeling of superiority tends to keep them a separate type. 
See Finch, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 110. 



The Mulatto: the Key to the Race Problem 103 

metis, to the open and bitter hatred of the South African 
for the "coloured man" and the Native boy, but it seems to 
be present everywhere. The origin of the half-castes was 
everywhere an irregular one; this is a point about which 
prejudice can always center. Their nearer approach in 
physical appearance to the white type is simply taken as 
evidence of additional irregularities in ancestry. The two 
things — the lower ancestry and the presumption of a du- 
bious origin — are the focal points about which the white 
man's contempt for the mixed-blood group centers. 

By the native race, the mixed-blood group is generally 
accepted as superior. The possession of white blood is an 
evidence of superiority. The ancestral blot excites no prej- 
udice. The mulattoes are envied because of their color and 
enioy a prestige among the darker group because of it. 

>Between these two groups, one admiring and the other 
despising, stand the mixed-bloods. In their own estimation, 
they are neither the one nor the other. They despise the 
lower race with a bitterness born of their degrading asso- 
ciation with it, and which is all the more galling because it 
needs must be concealed. They everywhere endeavor to es- 
cape it and to conceal and forget their relationship to it. 
They are uncertain of their own worth ; conscious of their 
superiority to the native they are nowhere sure of their 
equality with the superior group. They envy the white, 
aspire to equalit}^ with them, and are embittered when the 
realization of such ambition is denied them. They are a 
dissatisfied and an unhappy group. 

It is this discontented and psychologically unstable group 
which gives rise to the acute phases of the so-called race 
problem. The members of the primitive group, recognizing 
the hopelessness of measuring up to the standards of the 
white race, are generally content and satisfied with their 



104 The Mulatto in the United States 

lower status and happy among their own race. It is the 
mixed-blood man who is dissatisfied and ambitious. The 
real race problem before each country whose population 
is divided into an advanced and a backward group, is to 
determine the policy to be pursued toward the backward 
group. The acute phase of this is to determine the policy 
to be adopted toward the mixed-bloods. To reject the 
claims and to deny the ambition of the mulattos may cause 
them to turn back upon the lower race. In this case, they 
may become the intellectual leaven to raise the race to a 
higher cultural level, or they may become the agitators who 
create discord and strife between the pure-blood races. To 
form them into a separate caste between the races, is to 
lessen the clash between the extreme types and, at the same 
time, to deprive the members of the lower race of their chance 
to advance in culture by depriving them of their natural, 
intellectual leaders. To admit the ambition of the mulattoes 
to be white and to accept them into the white race on terms 
of individual merit, means ultimately a mongrelization of 
y vthe population and a cultural level somewhere between that 
represented by the standards of the two groups. 

The actual policy that has been adopted towards the 
mixed-blood race in different countries and the consequent 
role that the mulatto plays in different situations will be 
made the subject of a later chapter. 24 

The tentative conclusions here reached by a review of 
the mixed-blood races outside the American mulatto group, 
will be further verified or modified by a closer investigation 
into the origin, growth, status, and role of the mulatto in 
the United States. 






U4 



Chapter 12. 



CHAPTER V 

THE AMOUNT OF RACE INTERMIXTURE IN THE UNITED STATES 

IN Negro-white crosses, the characteristic negroid feat- 
ures persist with noticeably greater relative tenacity 
than do the characteristic Caucasian features. 1 In the 
mixed-blood population, therefore, the great majority of 
those individuals in whom Negro blood predominates pass as 
Negroes of pure blood, while in crosses where the white blood 
largely predominates, the Negro characteristics are still 
quite noticeable. 2 As a result, that part of the population 
commonly classed as mulatto contains far more white than 
Negro blood, and the actual number of mixed-bloods is 

1 Boaz, in studying Indian-white crosses, found similar results. "We 
find . . . the remarkable fact that the Indian type has a stronger in- 
fluence upon the offspring than the white type. The same fact is ex- 
pressed in the great frequency of dark hair and of dark eyes among 
the half-breeds." Franz Boaz, "The Half-Breed Indian," Popular Sci- 
ence Monthly, Vol. 45, p. 768. See, also, The Mind of Primitive Man, 
pp. 78 ff; and "Zur Anthropologic der nordamerikanischen Indianer." 
Verhandlungen der Berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthropologic, Ethnologie 
und Urgeschichte. 27:366 ff.; and F. von Luschan, "Die Tachtadschy u. 
andere Ueberreste der alten Bevolkerung Lykiens," Archiv fur An- 
thropologic, 19:31 ff., who points out the same fact as regards the mixed 
population of Southern Asia Minor. See James Oliver, "The Hereditary 
Tendency to Twinning," Eugenics Review, Vol. 4, p. 40. 

2 H. Gregoire estimated that five generations with no Negro blood after 
the original cross were necessary to make it possible for a Negro to 
pass as a white man. Literature of Negroes, p. 29. "Where the pro- 
portion is less than one-eighth of African blood the distinction of class 
begins to be obscured, . . ." The Compendium of the Seventh Census of 
the United States, 1850, p. 62. 

105 



106 The Mulatto in the United States 

likely to be greater than a set of census figures shows. 3 The 
desire, too, of the Negroes themselves to claim as full-blood 
all dark mulattoes of prominence tends further to obscure 
the facts. 

Moreover, the actual statistics of race intermixture in 
the United States 4 are of the most meager sort, and those 
available are not always wholly dependable. 5 This is more 
especially the case as investigation is pushed toward the 
beginning of the group. The only general statistics are 
those of the Federal Censuses of 1850, 1860, 1870, 1890 
and 1910. No other general census made a distinction in 
the returns between the full-blood and the mixed-blood Ne- 
groes. Prior to 1850, that is for four-fifths of the period 
that the Negro has been in America, there are only occa- 
sional estimates and partial statistical reports of sections, 
states, or cities made for special purposes. 

The institution of slavery is indigenous to Africa, and 
the slave trade has been carried on there since time imme- 
morial. At the time of the American colonization and de- 
velopment, the traffic in African slaves, captured on the 
West Coast, or purchased from the native African slave 

3 C. K. Needham, "A Comparison of Some Conditions in Jamaica with 
those in the United States," Journal of Face Development, Vol. 4, p. 
192, calls attention to the fact that in Jamaica the samhos — individuals 
ahout three-fourths Negro hlood — usually do not return themselves as 
mixed bloods. It is notorious that in this country many brown Negroes 
call themselves full bloods and so pass in their group. It is the excep- 
tional Negro, of course, who knows what his ancestry was for more than a 
generation. See, for example, William Pickens, The Heir of Slaves, p. 4. 

4 In South America and Central America and Mexico the statistics are 
wholly unreliable as the tendency is • for every one to call himself white 
if he has any trace of white blood. See p. 47 above. 

6 "The censuses of mulattoes, as distinguished from full-blooded ne- 
groes, taken in 1850, 18G0, 1870 and 1890, though subject to a far greater 
and wholly indeterminate probable error, have shown a general agree- 
ment of results." United States Census, 1890, Population, Vol. I, Part 
1, p. 185. 



Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 107 

dealers, was an important and profitable business carried 
on with the sanction of the more important nations of 
Europe. American colonization opened a new market for 
the slave dealers and slavery was introduced into most of 
the colonies almost as soon as they were founded. 6 Georgia 
was the only exception. This colony started with ordi- 
nances against the institution, but political pressure from 
the mother country, combined with business competition 
and social pressure at home, overcame the first intention so 
that slavery was introduced into the colony and legalized 
seventeen years after its founding. 

For a century there was a very slow increase in the 
number of Negroes in the colonies. 7 Increased importa- 
tions began after about the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, and the number of Negro slaves grew rapidly. For 
three-quarters of a century, the natural increase was being 
constantly added to by an ever and ever greater importa- 
tion. The actual number of importations, as well as the 
actual number of slaves, can only be estimated. 8 

8 Virginia IG19; Massachusetts before 1633; Connecticut from the first 
settlement of the colony; Maryland 1634 or earlier; Delaware probably 
in 1636; Georgia 1749; Rhode Island and each of the remaining colonies 
had slaves from their founding. 

7 The Compendium of the Seventh Census of the United States, 1850, 
p. 83, quotes from Mr. Carey's work on the Slave Trade as follows: 
". . . the trade in negro slaves to the American colonies was too small 
before 1753 to attract attention." 

8 Carey's estimate of slave importations: 

Prior to 1715 30,000 

1715—1750 90,000 

1751—1760 35,000 

1761—1770 74,000 

1771—1790 34,000 

1791—1808 70,000 

Total 333,000 

"It is claimed, however, that this total is too small, and that a closer 



108 The Mulatto in the United States 

The number of the Negroes was very different in the dif- 
ferent colonies, though there was an increase in number in 
all sections of the country until at least the middle of the 
century. "At the beginning of the eighteenth century, 
negro slavery was considered by the settlers of the colonies 
as a usual and routine matter, and in the New England 
and Middle Colonies, as well as in the South, the possession 
of slaves was generally accepted as an evidence of wealth 
and importance in the community." 9 By the middle of the 
century it existed by legal sanction in each of the colonies. 10 

estimate would bring the number to 370,000 or even 400,000." "Mr. 
Carey's figures indicate that the average annual importation was about 
2,500 between 1715 and 1750, and 3,500 for the period between 1751 
and 1760. The following decade was the period of greatest activity, the 
importations reaching an average of 7,400 a year. For the 20 years from 
1771 to 1790 the average fell to 1,700, but for the period immediately 
preceding the legal abolition of the slave traffic in the United States 
it was more than double that number." A Century of Population 
Growth, United States Census, 1890, p. 36. 
• Ibid., p. 37. 



10 Slave population : 








Colonies 


1715 a 


1775 a 


1790 b 


Connecticut 


1,500 


5,000 


2,648 


Delaware 


• • • 


9,000 


8,887 


Georgia 


• • • 


16,000 


29,264 


Maryland 


9,500 


80,000 


103,036 


New Hampshire 


150 


629 


157 


New Jersey 


1,500 


7,600 


11,423 


New York 


4,000 


15,000 


21,193 


North Carolina 


3,700 


75,000 


100,783 


Pennsylvania 


2,500 c 


10,000 


3,707 


Rhode Island 


500 


4,373 


958 


South Carolina 


10,500 


110,000 


107,094 


Virginia 


23,000 


165,000 


292,627 


Massachusetts 


2,000 


3,500 


• • • 



aG. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 
325. 

h A Century of Population Growth, p. 132. 
c Includes Delaware. 



Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 109 

The crossing of the races began from the very first in- 
troduction of the Negroes into the country. The first law 
in regard to slavery was an act not to establish, or even 
to provide a legal basis for, the institution but to "fix a 
rule by which the status of mulatto children could be de- 
termined." 11 This was in 1662, forty-three years after 
the Dutch traders had sold to the planters of Jamestown 
the first African Negroes brought to America. The total 
population at the time probably did not exceed one thou- 
sand. 12 

In Maryland the first statute concerning slavery was in 
1663. 13 It had for its object the deterring of English 
women from marrying with slaves and had to do with the 
offspring of Negro slaves who had intermarried, or in the 
future should intermarry, with white women. 14 This was 
twenty years after the first introduction of slavery into the 
colony. 

Massachusetts already was requiring military service of 
certain classes of her free Negroes and mulattoes by 1707, 
though the total number of Negroes at the time scarcely 
exceeded half a thousand, most of whom had come in dur- 
ing the quarter of a century just preceding. 15 Intermix- 



ii 



J. H. Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, p. 19. 

"In 1648 the number was about 300; in 1670 it was given as 2,000. 
See Chambers, American Colonies, Vol. 2, p. 7. 

13 Slavery seems to have been mentioned incidentally in a law pro- 
posed in 1638. See J. W. Cromwell, The Negro in American History, 
p. 3. 

"Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 240. 

16 In 16T6 there were said to be some two hundred Negroes, chiefly 
from Guinea and Madagascar in the colony. Four years later Governor 
Bradstreet estimated that ". . . there may be within our Government 
about one hundred or one hundred and twenty . . . there are very few 
blacks borne here. . . ." In 1708 Governor Dudley estimated the num- 
ber at 550. G. H. Moore, Notes on the History of Slavery in Massa- 



110 The Mulatto in the United States 

ture must have begun early in order that there could be 
a body of mixed-bloods at this time sufficiently numerous 
to be made the object of legislative enactment. Eleven 
years later, another act was passed having for its object 
the fixing of the status of mulatto slaves and mulattoes 
who were servants for a term of years. 

In Pennsylvania intermixture was already going on be- 
fore the colony was ceded to William Penn in 1681. A white 
servant was indicted in 1677 for having sexual intercourse 
with a Negro. 10 A settlement in Sussex County bore the 
name of "Mulatto Hall." 17 In 1698 the County Court of 
Chester County forbade the mixture of races. 18 Again in 
1722, a woman was punished for "abetting a clandestine 
marriage between a white woman and a negro." 19 The 
same year the Assembly received a petition praying for re- 
lief from the "wicked and scandalous practice of Negroes 
cohabiting with white people. 20 A general law of 1725-26 
forbade the mixture of the races. By the close of the colo- 
nial period, one hundred years after the colony was ceded 
to William Penn, — 1681 — the mulattoes constituted twenty 
per cent of the slave population of Chester County. Nearly 
half the Negroes in Pennsylvania were free at that time. 21 
The percentage of mulattoes was doubtless greater among 
them than among the total Negro population or among 
the slaves. 

What was true in this respect in regard to Virginia, Mary- 
land, and Pennsylvania was equally true of the other colo- 

chusetts, pp. 49 ff. See, also, Williams, History of the Negro Ra.ce in 
America, Vol. 1, pp. 183, 184. 

18 E. R. Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 29. 

17 Ibid., p. 30. » Ibid., p. 30. lu Ibid., p. 30. 

20 Ibid., p. 30. 

21 In 1790 the slaves numbered 3,707 and the free Negroes 6,531. A 
Century of Population Growth, pp. 222-23. 



I 



Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 111 

nies. In New York, in 1706, twenty-two years after the 
first introduction of Negroes, mulattoes were sufficiently 
numerous to be made the subject of legislative enactment. 
Connecticut began her black code in 1690 by passing a 
series of measures in which mulattoes were enumerated with 
Negroes and Indians. 22 The first act of Rhode Island was 
one recognizing the manumitting or setting free of mulatto 
and Negro slaves. 23 New Hampshire never legally estab- 
lished slavery, but as early as 1714 passed several laws 
regulating the conduct of "Indian, Negro and mulatto ser- 
vants or slaves." 24 The first legislation of Delaware in 
1721 mentions mulattoes. 25 North Carolina was settled 
from Virginia and as some of the settlers brought slaves 
with them into the new territory, there were probably mu- 
lattoes in the colony as soon as there were Negroes. The 
first statutory recognition of slavery was in an act against 
intermarriage passed in 171 5. 26 South Carolina's first posi- 
tive slave act, 1712, mentions 27 mestizos as well as mulat- 
toes, Negroes, and Indians, and implies that there were 
members of these classes who were free as well as members 
who were slaves. In New Jersey the usual formula in- 
cluding Negro, Indian, and mulatto slaves appears in the 
legislation at least as early as 1714. 28 

22 B. C. Steiner, A History of Slavery in Connecticut, pp. 12-13. Wil- 
liams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 254. 

23 Ibid., Vol. I, pp. 262-63. 
2i Ibid., p. 310. 

28 Ibid., p. 250. 

2fl J. S. Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Caro- 
lina, p. 15. 

"Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 290. 

28 H. S. Cooley, A Study of Slavery in New Jersey, p. 39. "In 1704 
'An Act for regulating negroe, Indian and mulatto slaves within the 
province of New Jersey,' was introduced, but was tabled and disal- 
lowed." Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 285. 



112 The Mulatto in the United States 

While it is thus clearly evident that the mixture of the 
races went on in all the colonies from a very early date, no 
definite information exists as to the number of mulattoes 
at any time during the colonial period. 29 There is every 
reason to believe that it was relatively more rapid than 
during the period that slavery existed as a national insti- 
tution 30 and this seems to be borne out by the few statis- 
tics available. 

A census of Maryland in 1755 returned eight per cent 
of the Negroes as mulattoes. Out of a total Negro popu- 
lation of 42,764, the mixed-bloods numbered 3,592. 31 At 
that time, Maryland had about one-sixth of the total Negro 
population of the country. 32 On the assumption that Mary- 
land was a typical average of the colonies so far as racial 
intermixture was concerned — and this would seem to be a 
fairly reasonable assumption — there would have been 21,552 
mulattoes in the country at that time. Allowing twenty- 
five years for the mulatto population to double 33 by nat- 
ural increase, that is, by interbreeding and intermarriage 
with the blacks, they would have numbered approximately 
sixty thousand by 1790. Assuming that intermixture went 
on during the years between 1755 and 1790 as it had dur- 
ing the preceding decades, and allowing for the enormously 
greater number of both the white and the black population, 
the number would easily double the above figure by the be- 
ginning of the national period. 

The statistics of free Negroes throw no light upon the 
subject. Of the 3,608 mixed-bloods in Maryland in 1755, 



39 See A Century of Population Growth, p. 91. 
30 See pp. 128, 147 ff., 158 f., 163 below. 
81 A Century of Population Growth, p. 6. See, also, p. 185. 
83 The total Negro population of the English Colonies in 1754 was 
260,000. That of Maryland in 1755 was 42,764. 

88 This has been the approximate rate of increase since 1860. 






Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 113 

1,460 were free Negroes and 2,148 were slaves. 34 The per- 
centage of mulattoes among the free Negroes was appar- 
ently higher everywhere than it was among the slaves, but 
there were mulattoes in considerable numbers among the 
slaves and by no means all of the free Negroes were mu- 
lattoes. 35 The situation differed greatly in different re- 
gions. In 1860 in the South, 10 per cent, roughly, of the 
slaves and 40 per cent of the free Negroes were mulattoes. 36 
In Richmond, there were more free blacks than free mu- 
lattoes, while in Charleston the great bulk of the free Ne- 
groes were mulatto. 37 The growth of the free Negro class 
was constant and rapid throughout the period that slavery 
existed as a national institution. 38 

Concerning the distribution of the mulatto population 
at any time before the census of 1850, not much can be 
stated definitely. The relative number of mulattoes was 
greatest in the Northern colonies especially during the lat- 
ter colonial period and during the entire national period. 



34 



A Century of Population Growth, p. 185. In 1752, Baltimore 
County had 116 mulatto slaves and 196 free mulattoes, 4,027 Negro 
slaves and 8 free Negroes. See, J. R. Brackett, The Negro in Mary- 
land, pp. 175-76. 

85 Free Negroes 1850: 

Black 275,400 

Mulatto 159,095 

Total 434,495 

The Compendium of the Seventh Census of the United States, 1850, 
p. 52. 

36 See p. 116 below, notes, 45, 47. 

87 Free black 891 

Free mulatto 4,587 

88 1790 59,557 1830 319,599 
1800 108,435 1840 386,293 
1810 186,446 1850 434,495 
1820 233,634 1860 488,070 

A Century of Population Growth, p. 80. 



114 The Mulatto in the United States 

The ratio of Negroes to the white race was less there than 
in the Southern colonies ; the relative number of free Ne- 
groes was greater. As a result of these two conditions, 
there was always a relatively greater admixture of white 
blood to the Negro group in the Northern states than in 
other sections of the country. 39 The later and heavy im- 
portation of slaves was into the Southern colonies, hence 
the newer and darker Negroes were in the South as against 
a relatively larger ratio of the older importations in the 
North. The determination of the Northern colonies late in 
the eighteenth century to free the slaves, further increased 
the difference. The percentage of blacks among the slaves 
sold South when these laws began to go into effect, was 
greater than their percentage in the general Negro popu- 
lation of the North. The free Negroes, who had a larger 
percentage of mixed-bloods, were not effected by the eman- 
cipation laws and so remained behind and became, relatively, 
a more important part of the Negro population. Of the 
actual numbers North and South, however, no definite facts 
are ascertainable. 

As between the urban and the rural situation, the mu- 
lattoes were largely a city product. Not only did the inter- 
mixture go on chiefly in the towns, but the free Negroes, 
always with a large percentage of mulattoes, tended to drift 
to the urban centers. For example, the slave register of 
Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1780 showed twenty per 
cent of the slaves to be mulattoes — a percentage reached by 
the whole country only after one hundred and thirty years 
of further intermixture. There were probably between four 

89 At the time of the first census the ratio of slaves to the white popu- 
lation in the, then, Southern States was fifty-three to one hundred; in 
New England less than one to one hundred, and five to one hundred in 
the Middle States. A Century of Population Growth, pp. 139-40. 



Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 115 

and five thousand Negroes in the state in the year men- 
tioned. 40 This preponderance of mulattoes in the city as 
against the rural districts was especially the case in the 
South, but the difference was marked in all sections of the 
country. 41 

40 Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 197. Russell, The Free Ne- 
gro in Virginia, pp. 14-15, points out the larger per cent of free 
Negroes in the urban population in colonial days and during the whole 
period of slavery. 

" Per cent of mulattoes in total Negro population of a chief city and 
of the rest of the state of typical Southern, Border and Northern 
States in 1860. 



Area 


1860 






Georgia 








Savannah City 


18.1 






Rest of State 


8.2 






Louisiana 








New Orleans City 


48.9 






Rest of State 


11.0 






South Carolina 


- 






Charleston City 


25.2 






Rest of State 


5.5 






Kentucky 








Jefferson Co. (Louisville) 


21.8 






Rest of State 


20.0 






Missouri 








St. Louis County (St. Louis) 


32.7 






Rest of State 


19.2 






Virginia 








Richmond City 


21.4 






Rest of State 


16.9 






New York 








King's County (Brooklyn) 


19.5 


(N. Y. City 3.3) 


Rest of State 


20.3 






Illinois 








Cook County (Chicago) 


49.3 






Rest of State 


46.8 






Massachusetts 








Suffolk Co. (Boston) 


38.3 






Rest of State 


29.9 







United States Census, 1890, Population, Vol. 1, Part 1, p. 191. 



116 The Mulatto in the United States 

The first Federal Census to make separate returns of 
the mixed-bloods was that of 1850. At that time, they con- 
stituted something over eleven per cent of the Negro pop- 
ulation of the country. 42 Of the total mulatto population 
approximately forty per cent were free and the remaining 
sixty per cent slaves. 43 Of the free mulattoes approximately 
two-thirds were in the slave states. 44 Of the total slave 
population about eight per cent were mixed-bloods 45 while 
about thirty-seven per cent of the free Negro population 
were mulattoes. 46 Among the free Negroes, the per cent 
of mulattoes was considerably higher in the slave than in 
the free states. 47 But as the whole Negro population of 

"Blacks 3,233,057; Mulattoes 405,751. United States Census, 1910, 
Population, Vol. 1, Part 1, p. 129. 

43 Free 159,095 

Slave 246,656 

The Compendium of the Seventh Census of the United Stales, 1850, 
pp. 64, 82. 

" Free mulatto 

Slave states 105,945 

Free states 53,150 



Ibid., p. 83. 

45 



Ibid., p. 82. 

48 



Ibid., p. 62. 

47 



Ibid., p. 83. 



Slave population 3,204,313 

Black 2,957,657 

Mulatto 246,656 



Free Negroes 434,495 

Black 275,400 

Mulatto 159,095 

Free Negroes 
Slave States 

Black 151,076 

Mulatto 105,945 
Free States 

Black 124,334 

Mulatto 53,150 






Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 117 

the North was free at this time, the only comparison with 
any j^oint is that between the total Negro population of 
the two regions. Nearly one-half the Negroes of the North- 
ern States were mixed-bloods, as against about one-ninth 
of those in the slave-holding states. In summarizing the 
distribution in different regions, the Census Report of 1850 
says : * 8 

The mulattoes in the United States are about one- 
eighth as numerous as the blacks — the free mulattoes 
are more than half the number of the free blacks, 
whilst the slave mulattoes are only about one-twelfth 
of the slave blacks. Between the states the ratios are 
very remarkable. Whilst nearly half of the colored in 
the non-slaveholding states are mulatto, only about 
one-ninth in the slaveholding states are mulatto, ex- 
cluding New Jersey. In Ohio and the Territories there 
are more mulattoes than blacks. In nearly all of the 
slave states, except Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri, 
etc., the free mulattoes greatly preponderate over the 
free blacks. Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri and Texas 
have the largest portion of slave mulattoes, and in the 
District of Columbia they are about one-fourth of the 
whole. 

Since the emancipation of the slaves, the census figures 
show an immensely more rapid increase among the mu- 
lattoes than among the darker members of the race. The 
returns for the United States as a whole for the five census 
periods for which there was a separate enumeration of the 
mulattoes is as follows : 49 

48 The Co7npendinm of the Seventh Census of the United States, 1850, 
p. 82. 

49 United States Census, 1910, Population, Vol. 1, Part 1, p. 129. There 
is a constant effort on the part of the mulattoes to make the proportion 
appear larger. "The figures as to mulattoes have been taken from time 
to time and are officially acknowledged to be understatements. Prob- 



118 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Census 
Year 

1850 
1860 
1870 
1890 
1910 
* Includes 



Continental United States 
Negro Population 

Total 



Negro 

3,638,808 
4,441,830 
4,880,009 
*7,488,676 
9,827,763 



Black 

3,233,057 
3,853,467 
4,295,960 
6,337,980 

7,777,077 



Per cent 
Mulatto Mulatto 

405,751 11.2 

588,363 13.2 

584,049 12.0 

1,132,060 15.2 

2,050,686 20.9 



18,636 Negroes enumerated in Indian Territory not dis- 



tinguished as black or mulatto. 

Doubtless these figures contain inaccuracies, but there 
seems to be no reason for the opinion often expressed that 
they are fundamentally misleading. 50 The Census itself 

ably one-third of the Negroes of the United States have distinct traces 
of white blood." W. E. B. DuBois, The Negro, pp. 184-85. He adds: 
"There is also a large amount of Negro blood in the white population." 
See, also, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 350. Fortune's statement is even 
more absurd: "The blood of all the ethnic types that go to make up 
American citizenship flows in the veins of the Afro-American people 
so that of the ten million of them in this country, accounted for by 
the Federal census, not more than four million are of pure negroid 
descent, while some four million of them, not accounted for by the 
Federal census, have escaped into the ranks of the white race, and are 
reenforced very largely by such escapements every year." T. T. For- 
tune, "Place in American Life." In Booker T. Washington, The Negro 
Problem, pp. 214-15. 

60 Question as to the accuracy of these Census figures is frequently 
raised. A good deal of this popular skepticism seems to have had its 
origin in a widely read book by Mr. Ray Stannard Baker. Mr. Baker 
says: "In the last census (1900) the government gave up the attempt 
in discouragement of trying to enumerate the mulattoes at all, and 
counted all persons as Negroes who were so classed in the communities 
where they resided. The census of 1870 showed that one-eighth (roughly) 
of the Negro population was mulatto, that of 1890 showed that the 
proportion had increased to more than one-seventh, but these statistics 
are confessedly inaccurate; the census report itself says: 'The figures 
are of little value. Indeed as an indication of the extent to which 



Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 119 

says: 

. . . The only available test of the trustworthiness of 
the results reached in 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1890 would 
be the degree to which they corroborated and confirmed 
one another. 

And again : 51 

. . . the censuses of mulattoes, as distinguished from 
full-blood negroes, . . . though subject to a greater 
[i. e., greater than the returns of the Negro] and 
wholly indeterminate probable error, have shown a 
general agreement of results. 

This increase in the mulatto population has been general 
throughout all sections of the country; each division has 
shown a marked increase from census to census. Not only 
have numbers increased, but the percentage of mulattoes 
to full-blood Negroes has increased everywhere except in 
the Mountain, Pacific and East North Central divisions. 
While the number of mulattoes has of course been far 

the races have mingled, they are misleading.' " Following the Color Line, 
p. 153. 

Mr. E. B. DuBois, "The Negro Race in the United States of Amer- 
ica," Inter-Racial Problems, p. 350, and elsewhere, apparently following 
Mr. Baker, reiterates the same error. 

The Census Report (Eleventh Census of the United States, 1890, 
Vol. 1, Part I, p. xciii. See, also, United States Census, 1900, Popu- 
lation, Vol. 1, Part 1, p. cxi.) does use the words quoted by Mr. Baker 
but in a context which wholly changes their significance. The census 
of 1890 undertook to divide the Negroes into Negroes, mulattoes, quad- 
roons, and octoroons. Regarding the results of this last inquiry the 
census report used the words quoted by Mr. Baker. To acknowledge 
that the attempt to make a minute subdivision of the race into Negroes, 
mulattoes, quadroons and octoroons was not considered successful is 
quite a different matter from asserting that the enumeration of mu- 
lattoes as distinct from the blacks is "of doubtful validity and officially 
acknowledged to be misleading." 

61 U. S. Census, 1890. Population, Vol. 1, Part 1, p. 185. 



120 The Mulatto in the United States 

greater in the Southern sections of the country at all periods 
covered by the census returns, the percentage of mulattoes 
always has been greater in the Northern sections. The 
following tabulation shows both the numerical and percent- 
ual increase in the different divisions thus allowing a com- 
parison between different sections of the country. 

NUMBER OF MULATTOES AND THE PERCENTAGE THEY FORMED OF THE 

TOTAL NEGRO POPULATION 







1870 1890 


1910 5 2 










1870 




1890 




1910 




' DIVISIONS 


Total 


Per cent 


Total 


Per cent 


Total 


Per cei 


New England 


9 080 


28.6 


14 579 


32.7 


22 150 


33.4 


Middle Atlantic 


21 989 


14.9 


48 152 


21.4 


81 969 


19.6 


E. N. Central 


38 125 


29.2 


76 999 


37.2 


99 809 


33.2 


W. N. Central 


24 880 


16.0 


56 782 


25.2 


69 631 


28.7 


South Atlantic 


230 721 


10.4 


438 785 


13.4 


855 819 


20.8 


E. S. Central 


162 228 


11.1 


289 035 


13.6 


507 055 


19.1 


W. S. Central 


96 755 


13.1 


197 124 


14.5 


397 986 


20.1 


Mountain 


473 


30.0 


4 637 


35.7 


6 135 


28.6 


Pacific 


1 798 


37.0 


5 967 


42.3 


10 132 


34.7 


Total U. S. 


584 049 


12.0 1 


132 060 


15.2 


2 050 686 


20.9 



While there has thus been a general and a decided in- 
crease in all sections of the country since the emancipation 
of the slaves, the actual increase, of course, has been 
greatest in the former slave states. The percentage of mu- 
lattoes to blacks has also increased more rapidly in the 
Southern states. Many of the Northern states show a de- 
crease in the mulatto percentages during the half-century 
of freedom. 53 The following tabulation shows the num- 

62 Negroes in the United States, United States Census Bulletin 129, 
1915, p. GO. 

63 The decrease in the percentage of mulattoes in certain of the North- 
ern States seems to be indicative of nothing except a migratory move- 
ment of the Negro population. The movement of the Northern Negroes, 
who have a high percentage of mixed-bloods, tends to increase the mu- 
latto percentage of the Southern states, while the migration of the 
southern Negroes, with a smaller percentage of mixed-bloods, tends 
to decrease the mulatto percentages in the North. Owing to the great 
number of the race in the Southern States the effect of the movment is 
scarcly noticeable there but in the states where the actual number of 






Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 121 

ber of mulattoes and their percentage of the total Negro 
population of the state as enumerated in I860 and 1910. 

Number and Percentage of Mulattoes in Different 

States 





1860 and 1910 








1860 


5i 


1910 


55 




Number of 




Number of 






Mulattoes 


Per cent 


Mulattoes Per cent 


Arkansas 


14,136 


12.7 


81,371 


18.4 


Alabama 


36,428 


8.3 


151,410 


16.7 


S. Carolina 


28,314 


6.9 


134,381 


16.1 


Connecticut 


1,901 


22.0 


3,746 


24.7 


N. Carolina 


44,798 


12.4 


144,123 


20.7 


California 


1,526 


37.7 


7,858 


36.3 


D. of C. 


5,433 


28.0 


32,952 


34.9 


Delaware 


2,979 


13.8 


3,706 


11.9 


Florida 


5,896 


9.4 


49,511 


16.0 


Georgia 


38,904 


8.4 


204,205 


17.3 


Illinois 


3,587 


47.1 


36,828 


33.8 


Indiana 


5,447 


47.7 


14,553 


24.1 


Iowa 


568 


53.1 


3,644 


24.3 


Kansas 


268 


42.7 


16,141 


29.9 


Kentucky 


47,359 


20.1 


65,943 


25.2 


Louisiana 


47,781 


13.6 


152,577 


21.4 


Massachusetts 


3,071 


32.0 


13,955 


36.7 


Maryland 


24,913 


14.6 


43,152 


18.6 


Missouri 


23,588 


19.9 


44,690 


28.4 


Minnesota 


169 


65.3 


2,616 


36.9 


Maine 


634 


47.8 


626 


45.9 



Negroes is very small the immigration or emigration of a few families 
is sufficient to change the percentage of the colors. It is just those states 
with a small Negro population where the effect of migrations would 
most quickly show in statistical tables which show a decreased percentage 
of mulattoes to Negroes. 

United States Census, 1860, Population, pp. 598-99. 

Negroes in the United Slates, United States Census, Bulletin 129, 
1915, p. 60. 



61 



65 



122 



The Mulatto in the United States 





Number of 




Number of 






Mulattoes Per cent 


Mulattoes Per cent 


Michigan 


3,375 


49.6 


8,036 


47.0 


Mississippi 


37,219 


8.5 


171,005 


16.9 


New York 


7,781 


15.9 


30,608 


22.8 


New Jersey 


3,462 


13.7 


14,207 


15.8 


New Hampshire 


253 


51.2 


208 


36.9 


Oregon 


62 


48.4 


434 


29.1 


Ohio 


16,691 


45.5 


39,249 


35.2 


Pennsylvania 


19,142 


33.6 


37,154 


19.2 


Rhode Island 


997 


25.2 


3,179 


33.4 


Texas 


25,260 


13.8 


124,695 


18.1 


Tennessee 


41,878 


14.8 


118,697 


25.1 


Vermont 


192 


27.1 


436 


26.9 


Virginia 


93,464 


17.0 


222,910 


33.2 


Wisconsin 


737 


62.9 


1,143 


39.4 



The distribution of the mulatto population, at all times 
for which the facts are known, has been in general accord 
with the ratio of the races. Where the proportion of whites 
in the total population is highest, the mulatto population, 
as a rule, is highest ; and where the proportion of Negroes 
in the general population is highest, there as a rule, the 
percentage of mulattoes is lowest. The minor divisions 
ranked in the order of increasing per cent of mulattoes in 
the Negro population is seen in the tabulation (p. 123) 
from the census returns of 1890 to parallel, in general, the 
decreasing per cent of Negroes in the general population. 

The tabulation shows that the per cent of mulattoes in- 
creases as the proportion of Negroes decreases. From the 
great black belt of the South to the Northern States, there 
is a decreasing proportion of Negroes in the general pop- 
ulation and an increasing percentage of mulattoes in the 
Negro population. "The general conclusion seems war- 
ranted that the proportion of mulattoes to total negroes 



Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 123 

Rank of Minor Divisions in Order of Increasing Per 
Cent Mulatto to Negro Population 



Minor divisions having at 


Rank in 


order of 


increasing per 


Per cent ne 


least 1000 negroes 


cent mulatto in total 


negro 


gro in to 


in 1850 




population 




tal popu 












lation 




1890 


1870 


1860 


1850 




Southern S. Atlantic 


1 


1 


1 


1 


45.5 


Eastern S. Central 


2 


2 


2 


2 


33.0 


Western S. Central 


3 


3 


3 


3 


29.1 


Northern S. Atlantic 


4 


4 


4 


4 


25.6 


Southern N. Atlantic 


5 


5 


6 


7 


1.8 


Western N. Atlantic 


6 


6 


5 


5 


2.5 


New England 


7 


7 


7 


8 


0.9 


Eastern N. Central 


8 


8 


9 


9 


1.6 


Pacific 


9 


9 


8 


6 


0.8 



was found by the enumerators to be high or low, according 
as the proportion of whites to negroes is high or low." 56 
The figures of the separate states bear out this conclusion 
in some detail. 57 

Commenting upon this distribution of mulattoes Stone 

68 United States Census, 1890, Population, Vol. 1, Part 1, pp. 190, 191. 
Also, "The figures also indicate that this admixture was found to be 
most prevalent in sections where the proportions of negroes to whites 
was smallest, and least prevalent where the proportion of negroes to 
whites was largest." Ibid., p. 190. And again, "The table seems to 
show that as a rule the states with the largest proportion of negroes to 
total population have the smallest reported proportion of mulattoes to 
total negroes. To this general rule Louisiana is a notable exception, that 
being third in order of proportion of negroes to population, but ranging 
from eighth to sixteenth in order of proportion of mulattoes to ne- 
groes." Ibid., p. 190. The exception in the case of Louisiana is to be 
accounted for by the fact of the early French and Spanish occupation, 
by the fact of it being an older settlement and by the fact that the 
transfer of the territory to the United States created a large population 
of free Negroes. 

57 See table p. 122. Compare pp. 79 ff. 



124 The Mulatto in the United States 

says: 58 

... A separate enumeration of mulattoes has been 
made four times, in the censuses of 1850, 1860, 1870, 
and 1890. The results disclosed the fact that where 
the proportion of Negroes to whites was lowest, the 
proportion of mulattoes to total Negroes was highest. 
For example: in 1890, in the South Central States of 
Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, 
Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, the mulattoes were 
but 14 per cent of the total Negro population. On the 
other hand, they were 32.7 per cent in the New Eng- 
land group. Expressed differently, of all the so-called 
"Negroes" whom a white man would see in Mississippi, 
only 11.5 per cent would be of the mulatto type, while 
of all those observed in Massachusetts 36.3 were mu- 
lattoes. In Maine 57.4 per cent were mulattoes, and 
in Michigan they were 53.8 per cent; while in Georgia 
and South Carolina they were respectively 9.9 per cent 
and 9.7 per cent. . . . 

The proportion of mulattoes is higher in the cities than 
in the rural districts. This is especially the case in the 
Southern States. In the cities of the Border States the 
percentage of mulattoes is still noticeably higher than it 
is in the general population of the states though the dif- 
ference is not so marked as in the distinctly Southern 
States. In the Northern group of states the per cent of 
mulattoes is enormously higher in both the cities and the 
general population of the states, and the difference between 
the two is less noticeable though the difference still exists. 59 

The data available seem to show that intermixture of 
the races began with the first coming of the Negro to the 

68 A. F. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 40-41. 

60 Unfortunately there seems to be no figures upon which a quantita- 
tive statement can be based. The census gives the proportion of mu- 
lattoes to Negroes in the cities of over 5,000 inhabitants. It also gives 






Amount of Race Intermixture in United States 125 

English colonies. It seems to have been a phenomenon in 
no way characteristic of any particular section of the coun- 
try. Mulattoes appeared in all of the colonies and the in- 
crease seems to have been rapid during the greater part of 
the colonial period. With the decline of the slave system 
in the North and the consequent freeing of large numbers 
of Negroes, the mulatto population correspondingly in- 
creased and its growth has continued to be rapid. With 
the firmer establishment of the slave system in the South, 
the relative amount of racial intermixture probably de- 

the proportion of mulattoes in the general population of the states. For 
example: 

State and city Per cent of mulatto 

Georgia 17.3 

Atlanta 32.4 

Louisiana 21.4 

New Orleans 34.1 

South Carolina 16.1 

Charleston 23.6 

Kentucky 25.2 

Louisville 36.6 

Missouri 28.4 

St. Louis 34.0 

Virginia 33.2 

Richmond 39.9 

New York 22.8 

New York City 24.9 

Illinois 33.8 

Chicago 41.6 

Massachusetts 36.7 

Boston 34.3 

This is a comparison of the chief city in the state with the Negro 
population of the state as a whole. Were it possible to separate the 
urban from the rural regions the differences shown here would be enor- 
mously increased. It would probably be found that the mulatto popu- 
lation is exclusively or almost exclusively urban and that the rural popu- 
lation with rare exceptions is black. United States Census, 1910, Pop- 
ulation, Vol. 1, Part 1, pp. 159, 230. 



126 The Mulatto in the United States 

creased greatly. Since the emancipation of the slaves, the 
number of mulattoes, especially in the former slave states, 
has increased rapidly. The decades from 1890 to 1910 show 
an enormous increase in the number of mixed-blood individ- 
uals. The ratio of mulattoes to Negroes has been greater 
in the North than in the South, at all periods for which the 
facts are known. The present forces operating tend to de- 
crease this difference. At all periods, the mulatto formed 
a larger per cent of the Negro population of the towns and 
cities than of the rural population. This is particularly 
the case at the present time in the southern section of the 
country but is not untrue of any region. If the facts could 
be known the mulatto would probably be found to be al- 
most an exclusively urban phenomenon. 

The nature of the racial intermixture and 'the forces oper- 
ating to produce the observed conditions are considered in 
the following chapter. 



CHAPTER VI 



NATURE OF RACE INTERMIXTURE IN THE UNITED STATES 



Intermarriage 

IN many of the Negroes brought as slaves to America, 
there was already some infiltration of Caucasian blood. 
The great majority, well above fifty per cent, came from the 
West Coast. A few came from the Congo and other re- 
gions toward the interior; a few were Hottentots and Bush- 
men from the southern part of Africa. These latter, how- 
ever, like the Pygmies of the interior, were mostly of a 
physical type too low to serve the purposes of slave labor. 
In general the higher Negroes were not taken. 1 It has been 
estimated that possibly one per cent of the Negroes im- 
ported were able to speak an Arabic dialect. Possibly fifty 
per cent had some trace of a previous intermixture with a 
white race. But of all the Negroes brought the Guinea 
Negroes were the purest and they constituted above half 
of the total importations. 

1 Edward Wilmot Blyden, one of the ablest men of the Negro race, 
maintains the thesis that white intermixture "has been the salvation of 
the Negro in the New World, for the black man who was weak enough 
to be caught and shipped away as a slave was naturally inferior in mind 
and body to the black man who possessed ingenuity enough to escape 
from the toils of slavery and remain at home as a slave hunter." Quoted 
from The Crisis, Sept. '13, pp. 229-30. See, also, G. W. Williams, His- 
tory of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 2, pp. 544-45, for a variation 
of Blyden's thesis. 

127 



128 The Mulatto in the United States 

Further crossing began as soon as the Negroes landed on 
American soil, if, indeed, it did not begin before the Negroes 
were landed. 2 The race never has shown any hesitancy 
about crossing with other races in any time or country. 
Their women have mixed with every race and peoj)le with 
whom they have come in contact in the ancient, as in the 
modern world. The scarcity of white women all through 
the Colonial period doubtless was an immense factor tend- 
ing to overcome any hesitancy the whites may have had to- 
ward sexual association with the members of a strange race. 3 
This mixture, as we have seen, has increased as the race has 
gained the rudiments of civilization and come to a better 
appreciation of Western culture. 

While the crossing of the Negro and the white races in 
America has for the most part not been within the bounds 
of conventional marriage, some small part of the actual 
intermixture has received the sanction of law and social tol- 
erance. 

In the colonies, the marriage of Negroes with white per- 
sons was considered highly undesirable and from an early 
date was usually prohibited by severe laws. 4 The public 
disapproval seems generally to have got itself enacted into 
legal prohibitions as a result of the first unions of the kind 

2 "Indeed, in those early da) r s many a negress was landed upon our 
shores by her captors already pregnant by one of the demoniac crew 
that made up the company of the slave ship that brought her over." 
R. W. Shufeldt, The Negro: A Menace to American Civilization, p. 80. 

"The first mulatto children were born off the coast of Africa, and 
their fathers were the first white men the black princesses of that coun- 
try ever saw. . . ." Anonymous, The Independent, Vol. 54, p. 2226. 

8 J. H. Van Evrie, White Supremacy and Negro Subordination, p. 153. 

4 "In the French, English and Dutch colonies, the laws, or public opin- 
ion, so prevents marriages between individuals of different colors, that 
those who would contract them, would be considered as degraded by 
their alliance, . . ." H. Gregoire, Literature of Negroes, p. 66. 



f 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 129 

that took place. 5 The first act of Maryland establishing 
slavery, passed in 1663, forbade the practice of intermar- 
riage and, from its wording, seems to show that such mar- 
riages had already taken place. 6 North Carolina in 1715 
passed an act carrying a heavy penalty on any white man 
or woman who should marry a Negro, mulatto, or Indian 
and also provided a heavy penalty on any minister who 
should officiate at such a marriage. 7 Within two years of 
the passing of the act, two persons were indicted for per- 
forming such a marriage ceremony. 8 A further law in 1723 
recites that certain free Negroes, mulattoes, and other per- 
sons of mixed blood had moved into the colony and, in de- 
fiance of the laws to the contrary, several of them had in- 
termarried with the white inhabitants. 9 Pennsylvania 
passed a similar law in 1725-1726, partly the result, ap- 
parently, of a clandestine marriage between a Negro and 
a white woman. 10 

Similar laws in the other colonies were passed at an early 
date usually as a reaction and a protest against some mixed 
marriage. How many such marriages there were, we have 
no way of knowing ; but that they were anywhere more than 

5 The law of Maryland, 1681, for example, seems to have been called 
forth by the marriage of "Irish Nell," a servant of the Lord Proprietor, 
who had married a slave. It was to determine the status of her mu- 
latto children. J. R. Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 34, f. n. 

"And be it further enacted, that all issues of English, or other free 
born women, that have already married negroes, shall serve the master 
. . ." Sec. III. Act of 1663. Quoted by Williams, History of the 
Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 240. See, also, Brackett, The Negro 
in Maryland, pp. 32-34. 

7 J. S. Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, 
pp. 58-59. 

8 Ibid., p. 58. 

9 Ibid., pp. 68-69. 

30 E. R. Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 29-31. 



130 The Mulatto in the United States 

the rarest exception there is no reason to believe. 11 Then, 
as now, such mixed unions roused an indignant protest from 
the decent members of the communit}'. 12 

Such intermarriages as did take place in these early days, 
seem to have been invariably with the meanest classes of 
the whites. 13 The marriages were contrary to law and to 
public sentiment, and were entered into at the price of social 
ostracism and legal punishment. Williams, 14 speaking of 
the first statute establishing slavery in Maryland, says: 

Section two was called into being on account of 
the intermarriage of white women and slaves. Many 
of these women had been indentured as servants to pay 
their passage to this country, some had been sent as 
convicts, while still others had been apprenticed for ai 
term of years. Some of them, however, were very wor- 
thy persons. . . . 

Brackett 15 also speaks of marriages between these Eng- 
lish serving-women and the slaves or free Negroes. Tur- 
ner 16 speaks of two mixed marriages in Pittsburgh in 1788. 
In one case, the couple was said to occupy a respectable 

11 E. R. Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 194-95. Bassett, 
Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, pp. 69, 58-59. 

" See, for e.g., Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 195-96. Also, 
E. I. McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland, p. 67. 

13 In North Carolina in 1727 "a white woman was indicted in the Gen- 
eral Court because she had left her husband and was cohabiting with a 
Negro slave." Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North 
Carolina, p. 58. "Among the servants imported into the colony, there 
were often women of a very low type, who during their term of servitude 
intermarried with negro slaves." McCormac, White Servitude in Mary- 
land, p. 67. 

14 History of the Negro Race in America,, Voh 1, p. 24Q. 

1B The Negro in Maryland, p. 196. 

19 The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 194. 






Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 131 

position. 17 Branagan 18 declares that such marriages were 
common in Philadelphia after the repeal in 1780 of the laws 
applying to the Negro. The grandmother of Benjamin 
Banneker 19 was an English felon transported to the colony 
of Delaware. 20 There seems to be absolutely no evidence 
of any marriages of a mixed sort in which the white con- 
tracting party was not of the lowest and usually of a vicious 
class. 

But whatever little intermarriage may have taken place 
between the Negroes and the servant class of whites in early 
colonial times, it decreased to an almost absolute zero as 
the status of the Negro became fixed and better understood. 
The spirit of fellowship that at first existed between the 
slaves and the indentured servants, imported criminals, pau- 
pers, and prostitutes gradually gave place to the feeling 
of bitter hatred that, throughout the days of slavery, char- 
acterized the relations of the "poor whites" and the Ne- 

17 "Cette famille est line des plus respectables de eette ville." Brissat 
de Warville, Nouveau Voyage, pp. 33, 34. Quoted by Turner, The Negro 
in Pennsylvania, p. 195, f. n. 

1S "I solemnly declare, I have seen more white women married to, and 
deluded through the arts of seduction by negroes in one year in Phila- 
delphia, than for the eight years I was visiting. [In the West Indies and 
the Southern States.]" "There are many, very many blacks, who . . . 
begin to feel themselves consequential, . . . will not be satisfied unless 
they get white women for wives, and are likewise exceedingly imperti- 
nent to white persons in low circumstances." "I know a black man who 
seduced a young white girl . . . who soon after married him, and died 
with a broken heart ; on her death he said he would not disgrace himself 
to have a negro wife, and acted accordingly, for he soon after married 
another white woman." "There are perhaps hundreds of white women 
thus fascinated by black men in this city, and there are thousands of 
black children by them at present." Branagan, Serious Remonstrances, 
pp. 70-71, 73, 74, 75. Quoted by Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, 
p. 195, f. n. 

See page 190 below. 

J. W. Cromwell, The Negro in American History, pp. 86-97. 



19 
20 



132 The Mulatto in the United States 

grocs. In the slave states, there was no intermarriage, ex- 
cept rarely among the Creoles of Louisiana. 21 In the North, 
there was very little. Where such marriages were not for- 
bidden by law, they were forbidden by the decent elements 
of the white community. Turner's summary of the situa- 
tion in Pennsylvania is, in general, characteristic of the en- 
tire non-slave holding parts of the country. He says : 22 

After a while a strong feeling was aroused, so that 
in 1821 a petition was sent to the Legislature, asking 
that mixed marriages be declared void, and that it be 
made a penal act for a negro to marry a white man's 
daughter. In 1834 such a marriage provoked a riot 
at Columbia; while in 1838 the subject caused a vehe- 
ment outburst in the Constitutional Convention then 
assembled. Three years later a bill to prevent inter- 
marriage was passed in the House, but lost in the Sen- 
ate. From time to time thereafter petitions were sent 
to the Legislature, but no action was taken ; the ob- 
noxious marriages continuing to be reported, and even 
being encouraged by some extreme advocates of race 
equality. Nevertheless what the law left undone was 
largely accomplished by public sentiment and private 
action. As time went on marriages of white people 
with negroes came to be considered increasingly odious, 
and so became far less frequent. When a case occurred, 
it was usually followed by swift action and dire ven- 
geance. The fact that a white man was living with a 
negro wife was one of the causes of the terrible riot in 
Philadelphia in 1849. 

In the period just preceding the Civil War, the emotional 
tension in the North and the preaching of amalgamation of 



21 



F. L. Olmsted, A Journey in (he Seaboard Slave States, p. 636, 
quotes a resident as saying that ". . . White men, sometimes, married a 
rich colored girl; but he never knew of a black man to marry a white 
girl." Olmsted adds: "I subsequently heard of one such case." 

The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 195-96, 



22 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 133 

the races by Phillips and others brought about a few inter- 
marriages. One of the wives 23 of Frederick Douglass, for 
example, was a white woman. But the total number of such 
unions was so small as to be negligible. 

In the period since the Civil War, mixed marriages have 
been very infrequent. Baker 24 gives one hundred and sev- 
enty-one as the number of mixed marriages in Boston for 
the six-year period ending in 1905. This is about the same 
average that has obtained for half a century. 20 Hoffman 26 
found sixty-five such marriages to have taken place in 
Connecticut in the eleven-year period ending in 1893. For 
the same period fifty-eight such marriages were reported 
from Rhode Island. In Michigan, for the twenty-year period 
ending in 1893, he found a total of one hundred and eleven 
mixed marriages. 27 In Bermuda for the twelve-year period 

23 The second. 

24 Ray Stannarcl Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 172. 

23 The following table gives the number of mixed marriages by five 
year periods from 1855 to 1887. 

Total Average per year 

1855—59 50 10 

1862—66 45 9 

1867—71 88 17.6 

1873—77 172 34.4 

1878—82 121 24.2 

1883—87 124 24.8 

1890 24 24 

26 F. L. Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies, pp. 199 ff. 

27 Hoffman seems to have included in his figures cases of open con- 
cubinage as well as conventional and lawful unions. According to the 
statement presented to the Michigan Legislature in 1915 less than 40 
mixed marriages have been legalized in the state in the past 30 years. 
The committee however were endeavoring to make a case against the 
proposed law to prohibit intermarriage and gave expression to a num- 
ber of errors of fact. Hoffman is probably the better authority. Re- 
port of Committee on Equitable Legislation, "Treatise on Proposed 
Changes in the Law of Marriage." 



134 The Mulatto in the United States 

from 1872 to 1883, there were one hundred and nine mixed 
marriages; for the following twelve-year period from 1884 
to 1895, there were but fifty-eight. 

In twenty-eight states the intermarriage of the races is 
forbidden by law, 28 in most cases under severe penalty. 29 
In other states, the sentiment against such unions is suffi- 
ciently strong to make the question a regular subject of 
legislative debate. 30 That they are not forbidden in all the 
states is not that they are approved, but that the number 
of Negroes is so small and the number of such unions so 
few, that they constitute no menace sufficient to force pro- 
tective legislative enactment. The Massachusetts attitude 
as described by Stone, is fairly typical of the more northern 
states where the Negro is not a grave and immediate prob- 
lem. 31 

For a period of 138 years Massachusetts prohibited 
intermarriage between whites and Negroes or mulat- 
toes. The statute of Queen Anne of 1705 may be said 
originally to have been tinctured by the religious ob- 
jection to a union between Christians and pagans. But 
it was several times reenacted long after such influences 
had ceased to exist. It was finally repealed in 1843. 
By such action Massachusetts did not by any means 
intend to declare in favour of racial intermarriage. 
The real significance of the repeal was that, whether 
consciously or unconsciously, the numerical insignifi- 
cance of the Negro population had finally brought pos- 
sibly a majority of the whites to a point from which 
they were able to view with entire indifference any pos- 

28 The constitutions of six of the states prohibit such marriages. 
39 E. A. Jenks, "The Legal Status of Negro-White Amalgamation in 
the United States." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 21, pp. 666-78. 

80 In 1913 bills aimed at prohibiting Negro-white intermarriages were 
introduced in ten of the twenty states then permitting such unions. 
Jenks, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 21, p. 666. 

81 A. F. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 60-61. 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 135 

sible consequences of a formal reversal of the ancient 
policy of the state. 

The large majority of the mixed marriages are of Negro 
or mulatto men and white women. In one hundred and fifty- 
eight of the one hundred and seventy-one cases reported by 
Baker, the groom was a Negro and the woman white. 32 In 
thirteen cases the groom was a white man. Of the fifty- 
eight mixed marriages in Rhode Island fifty-one were white 
females and seven were white males. Of the one hundred and 
eleven cases in Michigan ninety-three were white women and 
eighteen were white men. 33 34 Stone 35 comments on the 
Boston situation as follows: 

... As a matter of fact, for the past five years, of 
all the Negro marriages in Massachusetts, an average 
of about 10 per cent have been mixed. Moreover, in 
these cases the white party is a woman, very infre- 
quently a man. Of the 52 mixed marriages in 37 towns 
and cities of the state in 1900, 43 were between white 
women and Negro men. . . . 

During the five years from 1900 to 1901 there were 
143 marriages between Negroes and whites in the city 

Groom Negro Groom white Total mixed 

82 Year Bride white Bride Negro marriages 

1900 32 3 35 

1901 30 1 31 

1902 25 4 29 

1903 27 2 29 

1904 27 1 28 

1905 17 2 19 
Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 172. 

33 Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies, p. 119. 

84 It is interesting in this connection to note that of the 18 white men 
married to Negroes 6 married black females and 12 mulatto females; 
of the 93 white women married to Negroes 47 were married to black 
males and 46 to mulatto males. 

35 Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 62-63. 



136 The Mulatto in the United States 

of Boston, and 907 in which both parties were Negroes. 
In other words, with a Negro population of 11,591 
there were 1,050 marriages. Of these, 143, or 13.6 
per cent, if my calculation is correct, married white 
persons. Of these mixed marriages 133 were cases of 
white women marrying Negro men, while only 10 white 
men married Negro women. With the white women 
in this instance representing 93 per cent of her race's 
participation in such alliances, it is safe to dogmatize 
as to the processes of race intermixture. And my in- 
vestigations thus far lead me to believe that the same 
conditions exist in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New 
York. 

The mixed marriages as a rule are of the lower classes 
of the whites. The woman in most of the unions are recent 
immigrants and often, no doubt, contract the alliances with- 
out realizing the social consequences. 38 Hoffman made a 
careful investigation of thirty-seven such mixed unions. 37 
Eight were of white men living with Negro women, twenty- 
nine of white women living with Negro men. 

Of the eight white men, four were legally married and 
four were not. Three of the number were criminals or crim- 
inal suspects. The others were outcasts : one was a saloon 
keeper, one had deserted a white wife and family, two others 
were of good families but were themselves of bad reputa- 
tion. 

Of the twenty-nine white women, nineteen were lawfully 
married to their Negro husbands, while ten were living in 

88 ". . . The few white women who have given hirth to mulattoes have 
always been regarded as monsters; and without exception, they have 
belonged to the most impoverished and degraded caste of whites, by whom 
they are scrupulously avoided as creatures who have sunk to the level of 
the beasts of the field." P. A. Bruce, The Plantation Negro as a Free- 
man, p. 55. 

87 Hoffman, Bace Traits and Tendencies, pp. 204-06. 









Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 137 

open concubinage. Five of these latter were of foreign 
birth. Eight of the number were prostitutes, 3S one was in- 
sane, and one was the daughter of respectable parents. Of 
the nineteen who were lawfully married, four were prosti- 
tutes, two were guilty of bigamy, four were either divorced 
or had deserted husbands, five were apparently of respect- 
able parentage and contented with their husbands. Of the 
four others, Hoffman was able to obtain no information. 

Of the twenty-nine Negro men, one was an industrious 
barber of good character, five were of fair repute, nine 
were idlers, loafers, or drunkards, and eleven were, proved 
criminal. The character of the remaining three was not 
determined. 

Hoffman concludes this phase of his study as follows : 39 

Comment on these cases is hardly necessary. They 
tend to prove that as a rule neither good white men 
nor good white women marry colored persons, and that 
good colored men and women do not marry white per- 
sons. The number of cases is so small, however, that 
a definite conclusion as to the character of persons 
intermarr} T ing is hardly warranted. However, it would 
seem that if such marriages were a success, even to a 
limited extent, some evidence would be found in a col- 
lection of thirty-six cases. It is my own opinion, 
based on personal observation in the cities of the South, 
that the individuals of both races who intermarry or 
live in concubinage are vastly inferior to the average 
types of the white and colored races in the United 
States ; also, that the class of white men who have in- 
tercourse with colored women are, as a rule, of an in- 
ferior type. 



38 



It is perhaps not generally understood to what extent sexually sa- 
tiated prostitutes seek Negro men in their search for new stimulation, 
The same thing is true of many debauched white men. 
39 Race Traits and Tendencies, p. 206. 



138 The Mulatto in the United States 

The great majority of the mixed marriages occur in the 
larger cities. Of the fifty-eight reported from Rhode Island, 
for example, fifty-two were from Providence. 40 

These mixed marriages are very frequently marriages of 
mulattoes, usually very light-colored mulattoes, with the 
poorer and lower class of white women. Not infrequently, 
it would seem these unions take place without the girl real- 
izing that she is marrying a Negro. Cases where such facts 
are made the grounds for divorce proceedings, appear from 
time to time in the daily press. So uniform is it that the 
groom is of some importance and the bride a woman of the 
lower class, that some predict a final solution of the prob- 
lem of the Negro in America by a fusion of the upper class 
Negroes with the lower class whites. 41 

For this reason the idea, unpopular, to be sure, but 
still indicated by the facts, that the races in America 
are amalgamating is not unwelcome to many thinkers. 

• • • 

That simply goes to show that we are now part way 
along in the process, which I do not hesitate to say 
will be accomplished in time. The black race is to be 
absorbed. 

In fact, the thing will not be so repellant in a few 
hundred years as it is now. As it is, those who say the 
relation between whites and blacks is a symptom of 
mental defect on the part of the whites fail entirely 
to consider that times without number the scions of our 
best southern families have shown signs of such degen- 
eracy. 

Is it not more reasonable to expect that as time 
goes on the more cultured blacks will more or less nat- 
urally intermingle with the least cultured whites in the 

40 Hoffman, Race Traits and Tendencies, p. 199. 

41 G. B. Foster, as quoted in the daily press. See, for e.g., the Chicago 
Tribune, 11-9-1914. See, also, DuBois, note 134, p. 164 below. 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 139 

south until eventually the whole process will have been 
completed and our race will have absorbed the other? 
Surely, there is every reason to believe that that condi- 
tion will result. 

However this may be, it is evident that the origin of the 
mulatto group and its subsequent growth have been brought 
about, only in a very minor degree, through the conven- 
tional marriage relation. Such marriages as do take place 
are almost exclusively Northern Negroes, frequently light- 
colored mulattoes, with women of the lower classes and espe- 
cially with European immigrant girls. 42 The desire of the 
Negro in this respect is, when he becomes wealthy, fre- 
quently taken advantage of by white adventuresses of ques- 
tionable virtue. A certain prize fighter of national reputa- 
tion is a case in point. 43 

The Concubinage of Colored Women by White Men 

Another source of the increase of the mulatto group has 
been the concubinage of colored women by white men. This 
form of sex relation was fairly common in certain sections 
during the period of slavery. The relation, where it existed, 
approached often more nearly a form of polygamy than 
that of an indiscriminate sex relation. To what extent the 
relationship existed during the slavery days or even at the 
present time, it is not possible to say. The custom varied 
in different sections and in the same section at different 

42 ". . . In the majority of intermarriages the white women belong to 
the lower walks of life. They are German, Irish, or other foreign women, 
respectable, but ignorant. . . ." Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 172. 

43 There is here no intention to put in question the sincere devotion and 
pure romantic love that doubtless led to the marriage unions between 
such men as Frederick Douglass, President Scarborough of Wilberforce, 
Ira Aldridge, the actor, and other prominent mulattoes and their white 
wives. See note 4, p. 316. 



140 The Mulatto in the United States 

times. No doubt there were isolated instances of the sort 
everywhere, throughout the whole period that the Negro 
has been in the country. That it was a uniform custom of 
the slave-owning class, there is no reason to believe: that it 
was common in certain regions, there is no reason to 
doubt. 44 

The form of this sex relation was exclusively of white men 
and Negro women. In general, it seems not to have been a 
promiscuous relation between the master class and the fe- 
male slaves, but a relation between some favorite slave girl 
and a young man of the family. 45 It was not in any sense 
a forced relation on the part of the Negress ; on the con- 
trary, it was a relation to which the girl of the upper classes 
of the Negroes aspired as the highest honor and privilege 
which she could attain. To the girl it was, in the great ma- 
jority of cases, a matter of being honored by a white man. 46 

When a child or children resulted from the association, 
they not infrequently received their freedom — generally 
along with that of the mother — and occasionally, at least, 
received an education and a start in life. To escape the 
restrictions placed upon the free Negro yi many of the 
Southern States, these natural children, and other faithful 
slaves whom the master might wish to free, were frequently 
taken into free territory and there given their freedom. 47 

44 See pages 92-93 above. 

45 See note 25, p. 176 below. 
48 J. S. Bassett quotes a physician whom he considers trustworthy and 

who was raised on a rice plantation near Wilmington, North Carolina, 
as saying that ". . . Among themselves the slaves were immoral, but, 
generally speaking, there were no illicit relations between them and the 
white men. The white boys were sometimes intimate with the house- 
maids. . . ." Slavery in the State of North Carolina, p. 86. 

47 "At this time [about 1850] says Mr. Brown: 'Cincinnati was full 
of women, without husbands, and their children. These were sent by 
the planters of Louisiana, Mississippi, and some from Tennessee, who 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 141 

The highest development of the system of concubinage 
seems not to have been between the slave-holding families 
and their slaves, but between the free mulatto women and 
the non-slave-holding men. In its fullest development, the 
system flourished where there were the largest number of 
free Negro women of mixed ancestry and of some degree 
of culture and refinement. In Charleston, in Mobile, and 
especially in New Orleans, the system reached a stage little 
short of a socially sanctioned institution. Olmsted's de- 
scription of the system in New Orleans shortly before the 
war gives a picture of concubinage at its point of highest. 
development. 48 

I refer to a class composed of the illegitimate off- 
spring of white men and colored women (mulattos or 
quadroons), who, from habits of early life, the advan- 
tages of education, and the use of wealth, are too much 
superior to the negroes, in general, to associate with 
them, and are not allowed by law, or the popular prej- 
udice, to marry white people. The girls are frequently 
sent to Paris to be educated, and are very accomplished. 
They are generally pretty, and often handsome. I 
have rarely, if ever, met more beautiful women, than 
one or two of them, that I saw by chance, in the streets. 

had got fortunes and had found that white women could live in those 
states, and in consequence, they had sent their slave wives and children 
to Cincinnati and set them free.'" Booker T. Washington, The Story 
of the Negro, Vol. 1, p. 227. The Mr. Brown quoted was a free Negro 
or mulatto. This would seem to indicate that the scarcity of white women 
was the determining factor in the intermixture. Wilberforce, Ohio, is 
said to have a settlement of this sort. "The thing that gives a peculiar 
and interesting character to many of these ante-bellum Negro settle- 
ments is that they were made by Southern slave-holders who desired to 
free their slaves and were not able to do so under the restrictions that 
were imposed upon emancipation in the Southern states. Many of the 
colored people in these settlements were the natural children of their 
master. . . ." Ibid,, Vol. 1, pp. 234-35. 
48 A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, pp. 594-97. 



142 The Mulatto in the United States 

They are much better formed, and have a much more 
graceful and elegant carriage than Americans in gen- 
eral, while they seem to have commonly inherited or 
acquired much of the taste and skill, in the selection 
and arrangement, and the way of wearing dresses and 
ornaments, that is the especial distinction of the women 
of Paris. Their beauty and attractiveness being their 
fortune, they cultivate and cherish with diligence every 
charm or accomplishment they are possessed of. 

Of course, men are attracted by them, associate with 
them, are captivated, and become attached to them, 
and, not being able to marry them legally, and with 
the usual forms and securities for constancy, make 
such arrangements "as can be agreed upon." When a 
man makes a declaration of love to a girl of this class, 
she will admit or deny, as the case may be, her happi- 
ness in receiving it ; but, supposing she is favorably 
disposed, she will usually refer the applicant to her 
mother. The mother inquires, like a Countess of Kew, 
into the circumstances of the suitor ; ascertains 
whether he is able to maintain a family, and, if satis- 
fied with him, in these and other respects, requires from 
him security that he will support her daughter in a 
style suitable to the habits she has been bred to, and 
that, if he should ever leave her, he will give her a cer- 
tain sum for her future support, and a certain addi 
tional sum for each of the children she shall then have. 

The wealth, thus secured, will, of course, vary — 
as in society with higher assumptions of morality — 
with the value of the lady in the market; that is, with 
her attractiveness, and the number and value of other 
suitors she may have, or may reasonably expect. Of 
course, I do not mean that love has nothing at all to 
do with it ; but love is sedulously restrained, and held 
firmly in hand, until the road of competency is seen to 
be clear, with less humbug than our English custom 
requires about it. Everything being satisfactorily ar- 
ranged, a tenement in a certain quarter of the town is 
usually hired, and the couple move into it and go to 



: 



1 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 143 

housekeeping — living as if they were married. The 
woman is not, of course, to be wholly deprived of the 
society of others — her former acquaintances are con- 
tinued, and she sustains her relations as daughter, sis- 
ter, and friend. Of course, too, her husband (she calls 
him so — why shouldn't she?) will be likely to continue, 
also, more or less in, and form a part of, this kind of 
society. There are parties and balls — bals masques — 
and all the movements and customs of other fashionable 
society, which they can enjoy in it, if they wish. The 
women of this sort are represented to be exceedingly af- 
fectionate in disposition, and constant beyond re- 
proach. 

During all the time a man sustains this relation, he 
will commonly be moving, also, in reputable society on 
the other side of the town ; not improbably, eventually 
he marries, and has a family establishment elsewhere. 
Before doing this, he may separate from his placee (so 
she is termed). If so, he pays her according to agree- 
ment, and as much more, perhaps, as his affection for 
her, or his sense of the cruelty of the proceeding, may 
lead him to; and she has the world before her again, 
in the position of a widow. Many men continue, for 
a long time, to support both establishments — partic- 
ularly, if their legal marriage is one de convenance. 
But many others form so strong attachments, that the 
relation is never discontinued, but becomes, indeed, that 
of marriage, except that it is not legalized or solem- 
nized. These men leave their estate, at death, to their 
children, to whom they may have previously given every 
advantage of education they could command. What 
becomes of the boys, I am not informed; the girls, 
sometimes, are removed to other countries, where their 
color does not prevent their living reputable lives ; but, 
of course, mainly continue in the same society and are 
fated to a life similar to that of their mothers. 

The extent to which concubinage prevails at the present 
time, it is not possible to determine. There is no unanimity 



144 The Mulatto in the United States 

in the opinions expressed and no wide investigation on the 
basis of which an estimate can be made. The relation shocks 
the conventional, middle-class sex ethics of the community 
and the pronouncements so frequently met with on the sub- 
ject are seldom anything more than an offhand expression of 
passion and prejudice. That the relative importance of 
this particular form of race intermixture is generally 
grossly exaggerated seems certain, but how numerous the 
cases of concubinage actually are, it is wholly impossible 
to say. 

Unlawful Polygamy 

Aside from a very little lawful intermarriage and a 
larger, but wholly indeterminable, amount of unlawful, sub- 
surface polygamy ; there is, and seems always to have been, 
a much larger number of sexual irregularities between the 
races which are wholly casual in their nature. 49 It is this 
casual meeting and temporary association of individuals, a 
relation which approaches more nearly a form of prostitu- 
tion than a form of polygamy, that is now, and seems al- 
ways to have been, the characteristic form of intermixture 
that has existed between the races in America. It is not 
confined to any one section of the country 50 nor to any one 

* fl It is this third and numerically more important element that is 
overlooked by Mr. DuBois when he asserts that the mulatto is the product 
of "a system of concubinage of colored women in slavery days, together 
with some intermarriage." See The Negro American Family, p. 47. 
Also, see the article in Inter-Racial Problems, The Negro and elsewhere. 

w The Independent, Vol. 55, p. 454, says, speaking editorially: "None 
of the intermixture is the fruit of marriage. It has been nearly all 
produced in the South, and is all the fruit of white fathers and darker 
mothers." Here is exaggeration almost to the point of misstatement. 
It is not "all the fruit of white fathers and darker mothers:" some of 
it is the fruit of marriage. It has been "nearly all produced in the 
South" only in the sense that nearly all of the race has been in the 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 145 

social class in the community. 51 It goes on everywhere 
where class differences exist and where the vicious elements 
have an opportunity to associate. 

Russell 52 studying the free Negroes in Virginia concludes 
that they were in large measure the result of illicit relations 
between the masters and the slave women. Turner 53 con- 
cludes his study of the matter in Pennsylvania by freeing 
the master class from the charge of debauching the slave 
women. Bassett seems to doubt that the master class was 
an important element in production of the bastard race. 
Speaking of the laws enacted in regard to bastardy in 1715 
and 1741 which provided extra terms of service for the ser- 
vant who became a mother of a bastard child, he says : 54 

It is also evident that the sin of the servant would 
be an advantage to the master, since he would thereby 

South. Relatively the intermixture of the races has been greater in 
the Northern and Border States than in the South. 

51 The New York Age, the best of the Negro papers, in an unmannerly 
editorial replying to a coarse but on the whole truthful and accurate 
statement concerning the morals of Negro women, asserts that it is 
"the Southern Aristocrat" who is responsible for the mulattoes. Issue 
9-2-1915. 

62 ". . . Illegal marriages and of associations of whites with free ne- 
groes was so disreputable and disgraceful that they were entered into by 
the vilest white persons at the price of chastisement by privately or- 
ganized bands of white persons supported by community sentiment. The 
free mulatto class . . . was of course the result of illegal relations of 
white persons with negroes; but excepting those born of mulatto parents, 
most persons of the class were not born of free negro or free white 
mothers, but of slave mothers and were set free because of their kinship 
to their master and owner." J. H. Russell, The Free Negro in Vir- 
ginia, p. 127. 

83 "It must be said that the stigma of illicit intercourse in Pennsylvania 
would not generally seem to rest upon the masters, but rather upon 
servants, outcasts, and the lowlier class of whites." The Negro in Penn- 
sylvania, p. 31. 

Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, pp. 83-84, 



54 a: 



146 The Mulatto in the United States 

secure her services for a longer period. We have not 
the least evidence that such a thing did happen, yet it 
is possible that a master might for that reason have 
compassed the sin of his serving-woman. 

Whatever may have been the extent to which the master- 
class was involved — and there is no doubt that some portion 
of the bastard race was the offspring of temporary associ- 
ations of white masters and slave women — there seems to be 
no evidence of a reliable sort to indicate that all, or even 
the major part of the mulatto group, was of this origin. 55 
Concubinage certainly involved economically prosperous in- 
dividuals of the white race and the choicer individuals from 
among the darker groups ; the casual intermixture was char- 
acteristic of the undeniably common people of both races. 

In the colonial days, one group of the mulatto population 
owed its origin to illicit intercourse between slave women 
and white servants. 

The first introduction of the white indentured servants 
into the colonies is not known, 56 but by 1619, when the first 
Negroes came, they constituted a distinct class in the com- 
munity life. The system was a colonial modification of the 

88 There is, of course, no scientific credence to be given to the stories 
of so many mixed-bloods that they are descendants of some prominent 
man. The making of genealogies is not confined exclusively to the newly- 
rich class of the whites. It is not meant to question, however, that cer- 
tain eminent men may have been fathers of mulattoes. Benjamin Frank- 
lin was openly accused of keeping Negro paramours and seems to have 
made no attempt to deny it. "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for 
the gander." (1764.) "An humble attempt at scurrility." (1765), etc. 
Franklin, however, was not a member of the aristocratic class. His 
actions are rather an evidence of the part that the middle and lower 
class had to do with the production of the mulattoes. Thomas Jefferson 
has also been accused of being the father of mulatto children and he 
certainly was of the aristocratic class. 

J. C. Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, p. 27, f. n. 



E8 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 147 

European apprenticeship system then in vogue. 57 In gen- 
eral, this indentured servant class may be divided into three 
divisions on the basis of the cause of their immigration to 
America. 58 Many were free, poor people, anxious to go to 
America but unable to pay their way, who pledged their 
service for a term of years to gain passage. There were 
also a goodly number of persons, generally children, kid- 
napped in the streets of English cities and sold into servi- 
tude in the colonies. The third class were transported fel- 
ons, dissolute individuals, vagabonds, prisoners of war and 
various others whom the government was anxious to get 
out of the country. 59 So many of this latter class were 
sent, that in 1663, they were present in sufficient numbers 
to imperil the government. 60 The importation was stopped 
in 1671, England diverting the stream for a time to the 
West Indies ; but it was begun again in 1717 and continued, 
in spite of protests, to the time of the Revolution. It was 
not effectively stopped before 1788. 61 From 1664 to 1671, 
the average importation into Virginia alone was fifteen hun- 
dred a year. 62 It is estimated that from 1717 to the Revo- 
lution there were some fifty thousand criminals sent to the 
colonies. 63 

This white indentured servitude was just reaching its 
height in Virginia at the time the first Negroes were brought 
into the colony. 64 The number of Negroes increased slowly 

87 McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland, Chapter 1. 

88 Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, p. 33. Bassett, 
Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, pp. 75-77. 

88 Ibid., p. 30. 

90 Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, pp. 36-37. 

n Ibid., pp. 37-38. 

e3 Ibid., p. 41. 

83 H. P. Fairbanks, Immigration, p. 48. See, also, McCormac, White 
Servitude in Maryland, pp. 93 ff. 

84 Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, p. 91, 



148 The Mulatto in the United States 

at first, 65 there being only thirty in the colony in 1650. In 
1671 there were about two thousand slaves and six thousand 
white servants in Virginia. Twelve years later, the latter 
had nearly doubled, while the blacks had increased to about 
three thousand. The Negroes, however, proved their supe- 
riority as a servile labor class and from about 1685 on 
white servitude began to give way to black slavery. In 
Maryland, the white servants were numerous 66 and of the 
same general type as those of Virginia. Brackett 67 states 
that the English jails were in part emptied into the colonies 
and adds that many of the indentured class were adventurers 
and good-for-nothings. Elsewhere the situation was simi- 
lar, 68 though in the other colonies the white servants did 
not form so high a percentage of the total population. 69 

It was these servants with whom the Negroes came into 
closest contact. Many of them, of course, were highly re- 
spectable persons, 70 but among them were "disorderly per- 
sons," 71 deported convicts, prostitutes, and the like, in 
great numbers. They courted the Negroes as agreeable 
companions. 72 The social condition of the black and white 

65 See p. 107 f. above. 

69 See McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland, Chapter 3, "Number 
and Economic Importance." 

97 Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 118. 

88 Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, pp. 92-93. 

69 Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia were the three chief colonies 
importing white servants. 

70 ". . . In many instances they were people of much worth who had 
met with misfortune, or who having been poor in the first place had 
taken advantage of this opportunity to make their fortunes in the New 
World. . . ." Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North 
Carolina, p. 80. 

" Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 121. 

72 See Bassett, Slavery in the State of North Carolina, p. 22, for illu- 
minating side-light on the consequences of the association of the Negroes 
and the low-class whites- 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 149 

servants was at first much the same; they "were bound to- 
gether b} r a fellowship of toil." 73 The relatively great num- 
ber of the vicious whites in certain regions 7i made it in- 
evitable that there should be much illicit relations between 
the races. The first case of intermixture of which there is 
any record is that of a white servant and a Negro woman. 75 
"During the first half to three-quarters of a century there 
was an indiscriminate mingling and marrying." 76 Wil- 
liams adds : 77 

The contact of these two elements — of slaves and 
convicts — was neither prudent nor healthy. The half- 
breed population increased and so did the free negroes. 
The negroes suffered from the touch of moral conta- 
gion of this effete matter driven out of European so- 
ciety. 

There was a provision in the Maryland law of 1692 that 
any white man who married with or had a child by a Negro 

78 Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 121. 

74 The population of the present territory of Baltimore and Hartford 
in 1752 was given as follows: 

Free whites over 11,000 

White servants nearly 1,000 

Convicts 5,000 to 6,000 

Mulatto slaves 116 

Negro slaves 4,027 

Free mulattoes 196 

Free Negroes 8 

Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, pp. 175-76. 

75 This was the case of Hugh Davis. He was publicly flogged Sep- 
tember 17, 1630, "before an assembly of negroes and others" for "defil- 
ing himself with a negro." "It was required that he confess as much 
the following Sabbath." Williams, History of the Negro, Vol. 1, p. 121, 
quoting Henning. See, also, Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony 
of Virginia, pp. 72-73. 

78 Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 121. 
History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 247. 



T7 



150 The Mulatto in the United States 

woman should be put to service for a period of seven 
years. 78 In Pennsylvania, a white servant was indicted for 
sexual offence with a Negress in 1677. 79 In 1722, the As- 
sembly was petitioned for relief from the practice of white 
people cohabiting with Negroes. A whole tract of land in 
Sussex County was known as "Mulatto Hall." The mu- 
lattoes, who were numerous, were the offspring of Negroes 
and low-class whites. 80 

In the earlier days, the association between the Negro 
slaves and the bonded servants was close, and this sym- 
pathetic relation held in some cases as between the free 
Negroes and the freed white servants. The poor whites 
in many cases tried to screen the fugitive slaves, 81 and the 
free Negro was not always improved by freedom. 82 "It 
was thought that a rather large proportion of the free 
colored females, particularly free mulattoes, were un- 
chaste." 83 In Maryland, there was a special legal enact- 
ment to cover the case of free Negro women having chil- 
dren of white men. 84 Bassett 85 says of the early Negro 
slaves that "They were in the lowest moral condition . . . 



78 



Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 33. 

"Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 29-30. 

w Ibid., pp. 30-31. 

81 Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, 
p. 34. 

81 "The women grew unchaste, the men dishonest, until in many minds 
the term 'free negro' became a synonym of all that was worthless and 
despicable." David Dodge [O. W. Blacknall], "The Free Negroes of 
North Carolina." Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 57, p. 26. 

"Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, p. 137. He adds: "However 
this may have been, there is ample documentary evidence to show that 
in the 19th century there was a large class of the free colored population 
the members of which were respectable and observant of decency and 
regularity in their family relation." 

Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, pp. 33, 195. 

Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, p. 30. 



84 
85 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 151 

They were bestial, given to the worst venereal diseases and 
they had little or no regard for the marriage bond." Brick- 
well, who was a physician, says that the white men of the 
colony suffered a great deal from a malignant kind of 
venereal disease which they took from the slaves. 86 The 
looseness of the marriage tie among the free blacks was 
notorious. 87 Strenuous measures were necessary to main- 
tain order among the assemblages of the blacks and whites. 88 

As the Negroes increased in numbers, however, distinc- 
tions were made between the blacks and the whites. The 
heavier work was put upon the Negroes "and the servant 
class as more intelligent was reserved for the lighter 
tasks." 89 The Negresses were frequently employed in the 
field work with the men. Many of the servants were taken 
into the master's house. "Women-servants were com- 
monly employed as domestics." 90 

The servants, as a class, came quickly to exaggerate the 
difference. They worked with the Negro but did not live 
with him. The feeling of fellowship that at first existed 
between the white servants and the black slaves gradually 
gave place to social estrangement. 91 "Yet, in spite of the 
strong social antipathies, there was some illicit relations 

86 Ibid., pp. 30, 59. It is probable that they contracted this disease 
from the Indian rather than from the Negro slaves. If from the Ne- 
groes, they had received it from the Indians. 

87 Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 189. 

■""... Friends were still troubled by the racing of horses and the 
meeting of negroes . . . Great crowds of idle whites and blacks, they 
said, drank and behaved riotously there— until, in 1747, horse racing 
was forbidden, also, and the constables of the neighborhood ordered to 
disperse all crowds of slaves, at the time of the yearly meetings, if nec- 
essary by whipping and by the assistance of a posse." Ibid., p. 102. 

89 Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, p. 69. 

89 Ibid., p. 69. 

81 Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, pp. 124-27. 



152 The Mulatto in the United States 

between shameless white persons and Negroes." 92 Wil- 
liams, 93 speaking of Maryland, says that the Negro slaves 
who were at first courted by the convicts and other lowly 
whites, at length came to be treated worse by them than 
by the opulent and intelligent slave dealers. 

This attitude of superiority and the disposition to keep 
free from all association with the Negro, which was at all 
times true of many individuals and which later came to be 
a marked characteristic of the whole poor white class, is 
thus stated by Ballagh: 94 

The natural pride of the free man sustained this 
feeling, together with the strong race prejudice that 
has ever separated the Englishman from an inferior 
and dependent race. . . . These sentiments were ef- 
fective with the better class of servants in keeping them 
aloof from association with such inferiors. With con- 
victs and the lower classes, where such considerations 
were not always sufficient, the law. . . . Freemen and 
servants alike were subjected to severe penalties for 
intercourse with negroes, mulattoes and Indians, and 
intermarriage with them or with infidels was prohibited 
by many statutes prescribing the punishment both for 
the offender and the minister who performed the cere- 
mony. The limitation of the servants, marriages upon 
the master's consent was a sufficient safe-guard in their 
case, and but little responsibility may be regarded as 
attaching to them for the growth of the mulatto class. 
As was natural between two dependent classes whose 
conditions were different and widely in favor of one 
class, race prejudice and pride were at their strongest 
and developed jealousies which did not exist between 
master and his dependent or the freedman and the slave. 
A disposition on the part of the servants to keep them- 

92 Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, p. 124. 

93 History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 247. 

94 White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, pp. 71-73. 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 153 

selves free from all association with negroes was per- 
ceptible. 

Another body of the mulattoes were children of white 
servant women by slave and free Negro men. There seems 
to have been a considerable number of these mulattoes in 
Virginia toward the end of the seventeenth century. 95 By 
the law of Virginia, these children were bound out by the 
church wardens until the age of thirty. The master was 
required to provide some degree of education for the ap- 
prentices. 96 The servant woman guilty of having a mu- 
latto child was sold for five years as a punishment. 97 These 
mulatto children of white women account, in small part, for 
the large number of free mulattoes in Virginia in the middle 
and latter part of the seventeenth century. 98 

In Mar viand from 1692, there were penalties for white 
women allowing themselves to be with child by colored per- 
sons and for colored men guilty of the act. 99 The same 
penalty was provided for slaves and free colored persons. 100 
Says McCormac : 101 

While this law [1681] very effectually protected the 
servant from evil designs of an avaricious master, it 
did not prevent lewd conduct on the part of the ser- 
vant. Mingling of the races continued during the 18th 

95 Ibid., pp. 72-74. 

66 Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, pp. 40 ff., 138. 
""Where the offence occurred, then, it was more likely to do so in 
the case of a free person than of a servant, . . ." Ballagh, White Servi- 
tude in the Colony of Virginia, p. 73. 

W. H. Thomas, The American Negro, p. 6. 
Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 196. 

°Ibid., p. 191. "There were not a few cases of such offspring." In 
1790 there is a case of a sale of a white woman and her mulatto child 
as servants. There are other cases in 1793 and 1794. See, also, p. 

140 f. n. 
101 McCormac, White Servitude in Maryland, pp. 69-70. 



98 
99 
10O 



154 The Mulatto in the United States 

century, in spite of all laws against it. Preventing 
the marriage of white servants with slaves only led to 
a greater social evil, which caused a reaction of public 
sentiment against the servant. Masters and society in 
general were burdened with the care of illegitimate mu- 
latto children. . . . 

In Pennsylvania, especially in the neighborhood of Phil- 
adelphia, a mulatto population grew up, some of which 
were slave and some were free, according to the condition 
of the mother. Says Turner: 102 

. . . The child of a slave was not necessarily a slave 
if one of the parents was free. The line of servile 
descent lay through the mother. Accordingly the child 
of a slave mother and a free father was a slave, of a 
free mother and a slave father a servant for a term of 
years only. The result of the application of this doc- 
trine to the offspring of a negro and a white person 
was that the mulattoes were divided into two classes. 
Some were servants for a term of years ; the others 
formed a third class of slaves. 

The act of 1725-1726 recognized this. The law enumer- 
ated four classes of Negro servants. "Fourthly, all mu- 
latto children who were not slaves for life, were to be bound 
out until they were thirty-one years of age." 103 Bassett, 104 
in enumerating the sources of the free Negro population, 
says : 

Another [source] was the children of white women 
by negro men. There is evidence that not a few such 
people were in the government. Taken all together, 
there was a considerable number of free negroes among 
the people by the close of the Colonial period. 

103 The Negro in Pennsylvania, pp. 24-25. 
™Ibid., pp. 91-92. 

104 Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, p. 67. 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 155 

Delaware in 1721 passed an act punishing adultery and 
fornication. It provided that in case of children of a white 
woman by a slave, the County Court bound them out until 
they were thirty-one years of age. 105 The number of mu- 
lattoes born to white women was nowhere large but that 
the number was considerable there is no reason to doubt. 

There appears also to have been some intermixture be- 
tween the low-class white women and the Indian men. 106 
The Indians were never under the social ban to the same 
extent as the Negro. The distinction between mulattoes, 
mustees, and half-breed Indians was not always clearly 
made; the term mulatto was frequently used to include all 
three. 107 It may well be that in some of the cases men- 
tioned of white women having mulatto children, the off- 
spring were really half-breed Indians. 

Intermarriage with Indians 

The Negro has everywhere and at all times mixed freely 
with the Indian. The barriers to social equality were less 
between them than between either and the white. There was 
some ground of sympathy between them and there were 
no laws forbidding intermixture. 108 In many of the colo- 
nies, the first slaves were Indians. 109 The captives in battle 



105 
106 



Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, p. 250. 

Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 117, mentions such a case. 
". . . At about the same time, a Pocomok Indian was imprisoned for 
rape of an English woman. ... As it was found that the woman had 
willingly erred, the Indian was merely whipped, according to English 
law, and advised by the court to be more circumspect." 

107 Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, p. 130. See, also, Bassett, 
Slavery in the State of North Carolina, p. 90. He here quotes a cor- 
respondent as saying that "many of them [mulattoes] were descended 
from Indian and . . ." 

108 Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, pp. 41, 127 If. 

W9 Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, 



156 The Mulatto in the United States 

were enslaved, 110 and not a few were kidnapped along the 
unsettled coasts and sold into slavery among the more set- 
tled colonies. 111 How many Indian slaves there were, it 
is impossible to say ; they w r ere classed with the blacks and 
no difference was made between them and other slaves. 112 
They were not particularly adapted to slavery, 113 and as 
the Negroes increased, they gradually disappeared. 114 They 
were thrown into close association with the Negroes, inter- 
married readily with them, and were gradually absorbed by 
and disappeared into the growing body of blacks. 115 

pp. 71-74. B. C. Steiner, A History of Slavery in Connecticut, pp. 9 ff. 
"Indian Slavery." 

110 Massachusetts sold the captives in King William's war into slavery. 
Virginia made slaves for life of those Indians taken in war but hesi- 
tated to do so with those offered for sale by other Indians. Steiner, 
A History of Slavery in Connecticut, p. 9. Brackett, The Negro in 
Maryland, p. 19. Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North 
Carolina, pp. 72 ff. 

111 The first slaves in North Carolina were of this sort. Ibid., p. 71. 

112 H. S. Cooley, A Study of Slavery in New Jersey, pp. 11-13. 

113 "At first some masters enslaved Indian women to increase their 
slave-progeny. This cross was not adapted to slavery, because those of 
Indian blood knew the country and were better able to escape. Conse- 
quently a law was passed in most states forbidding the enslavement of 
the children of Indian mothers. For this reason many Negro men took 
Indian wives so that their children might be born free. . . ." J. F. 
Gould, "The Negro Finding Himself," Speech before the Boston Business 
League, A Negro Organization. Quoted in the Boston Reliance, a Negro 
newspaper. It is not meant for humor. 

114 Massachusetts in 1712 and Connecticut in 1716 forbade the impor- 
tation of Indian siaves on the ground that they were fierce and caused 
trouble. Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Caro- 
lina, p. 73. 

U5 Ibid., p. 72. Dodge, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 57, pp. 29-30. 
many, if not the larger part of the free negroes whose freedom dates 
further back than this century show traits in mind and body that are 
unmistakably Indian. . . ." The Indians seem to have been more used 
as concubines than were the Negresses and consequently more of them 
set free because they had borne half-breed children. This was especially 



Nature of Race Intermixture m United States 157 

The reservations set apart in the seventeenth and eight- 
eenth centuries in many cases became the common home for 
Indians and free Negroes. 116 117 As the Negroes frequently 
outnumbered the Indians, these settlements generally lost 
all but a tradition of Indian ancestry. 118 Runaway slaves 
frequently sought refuge among the Indians. In some 
cases, they were harbored 119 and taken into the tribe. In 

true of the French settlements. Both the French and the English feel 
less repugnance toward the Indian than toward the Negro. H. A. 
Trexler, Slavey in Missouri, p. 80. See, also, note 118, p. 157 below. 

118 John Fisk, The Discovery of America, Vol. 2, pp. 427 ff., has an 
excellent brief description of Indian slavery. 

117 A petition in 1843 in regard to the Pamunkey reservation in King 
Williams County stated "that all but a small remnant of the old Indian 
tribe was extinct, and that in its place were free mulattoes, . . . 'They 
are so mingled with the negro race as to have obliterated all striking 
features of Indian extraction. It is the general resort of free negroes 
from all parts of the country.' " Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, 
p. 129. White persons in the vicinity of the reservation of the Notta- 
ways and kindred tribes affirmed, in 1821, that the wives and husbands 
of the Indians were free Negroes and "that they had neither prudence 
nor economy." Ibid., p. 129. Of the inhabitants of the Gingaskin res- 
ervation it was said in 1787 "that those who were not entirely black 
had 'at least half black blood in them.' The place was called Indian 
Town, but many of the squaws had negroes for husbands, and the Indian 
braves lived with black wives." Ibid., p. 128. 

118 Bureau of American Ethnology. Handbook of the American In- 
dians, Part 1, p. 914. "There is no doubt that many of the broken coast 
tribes have been completely absorbed into the negro race." See, also, 
p. 81 above. 

119 "In treaties made with the governor of Maryland with various 
Indians, in 1661 and 1663, there is the stipulation that the Indians are 
to return any runaway 'Englishmen.' Later the neighboring Indians 
were encouraged to seize runaways by the reward of a blanket or its 
value. Treaties with them forbade their harboring servants and slaves, 
who were to be given over to the nearest English plantation. The back- 
woods offered a near retreat for runaways. As a certain tribe of Indians 
had evidently been regardless of the rights of the good people of Mary- 
land in their servants and slaves, the Governor and Council decided, in 



158 The Mulatto in the United States 

other cases, they simply became the slaves of the Indians 
among whom they sought refuge. 120 The Cherokees and 
the Creeks were large slave holders and for the most part 
mixed on terms of equality with their black slaves. The 
Seminoles at a later date owned large numbers of slaves 
with whom they had intermixed. There seem also to have 
been in their tribe many runaways who were not classed as 
slaves. 

Intermixture During Slavery and at Present 

The illicit relations between the Negroes and the low- 
class whites, which in some regions at least characterized the 
racial situation during a considerable portion of the colo- 
nial period, very greatly decreased as the institution of 
slavery developed. On the one hand, the general and bit- 
ter hatred that existeci everywhere in the slave states be- 
tween the "poor white class" and the slaves tended to keep 
the races apart and to keep intermixture at a minimum. 121 

1722, to send to these a messenger with a treaty of peace and friend- 
ship, and the promise of a reward of two blankets and a gun to every 
Indian who should return a slave. These allurements were evidently 
unavailing, for three years later it was decided to send again, to invite 
the chiefs to Annapolis. . . ." Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, pp. 
74-75. 

120 Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Carolina, 
p. 57, quotes Brikell, Natural History of North Carolina, p. 273, as say- 
ing that "The Indians . . . had a natural and irreconcilable hatred for 
the negroes and delighted in torturing them. When they would meet 
runaways in the woods they would attack them vigorously, either killing 
them or driving them back to the whites." 

121 This was by no means always the case between the free Negroes and 
the poor whites. See Bassett, Slavery in the State of North Carolina, 
p. 43. Dodge, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 59, p. 29, says: ". . . Hardly a 
neighborhood was free from low white women who married or co- 
habited with free negroes. Well can I recollect the many times when, 
with the inconsiderate curiosity of a child, I hurriedly climbed the front 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 159 

On the other hand, whatever may have been the extent of 
the irregular relationships between the slave-holding class 
and their female slaves, the slave system as a working and 
developed institution regulated strictly the conduct of the 
slaves and thereby restricted, in a measure, irregular rela- 
tions between them and the general white population. 122 
Miss Frances A. Kemble, who spent some time in Georgia 
about 1850, naively testifies to this fact. 123 

I observed, among the numerous groups that we 
passed or met, a much larger proportion of mulattoes 

than at the rice-island : upon asking Mr why this 

was so, he said that there no white person could land 
without his or the overseer's permission, whereas on St. 
Simon's which is a large island containing several plan- 
tations belonging to different owners, of course the 
number of whites, both residing on and visiting the 
place, was much greater, and the opportunity for in- 
tercourse between the blacks and whites much more 
frequent. 124 

gate-post to get a good look at a shriveled old woman trudging down 
the lane, who, when young, I was told, had had her free-negro lover 
bled, and drank some of his blood, so that she might swear she had 
Negro blood in her." 

133 Bruce, The Plantation Negro as a Freeman, p. 17, gives a good 
statement of the restraining effects of slavery on the Negro. 

123 Residence on a Georgian Plantation, p. 162. 

124 In another place, speaking of a certain mulatto woman, Miss Kem- 
ble says: "This woman was a mulatto daughter of a slave called Sophy, 
by a white man of the name of Walker, who visited the plantation," p. 
190. Of another mulatto she says: "The woman's father had been a 
white man who was employed for some purpose on the estate," p. 194. 
It was of course to the master's interest to prevent intermixture so far 
as he was able to do so. "If a woman had children she was rendered 
less desirable as a slave. . . ." Frequently slave women were offered 
for sale for no other reason than that they had children. Cooley, 
A Study of Slavery in New Jersey, p. 55. However, this was not al- 
ways the case. Brickell, Natural History of North Carolina, p. 272, 



160 The Mulatto in the United States 

In the cities and towns of the South, however, there was 
no such degree of restraint exercised over the slaves as was 
the case on the plantations. Opportunities for association 
with others than the master class were greatly increased. A 
much larger per cent of the slaves were house servants. The 
number of free Negroes and free mulattoes was larger. The 
better opportunity for association resulted in a greatly in- 
creased amount of intermixture in the cities. 125 Here there 
was a casual mixture totally different in kind from the more 
or less permanent or regular association that frequently 
existed between the slave owner and a favorite Negress. 
It was in general the vicious elements of the whites which 
were responsible for the mulattoes in the cities ; on the plan- 
tations, generally speaking, the Negro woman was screened 
as far as possible from association with this class of whites. 
The disorganization resulting from the breakdown of the 
master and slave relationship, brought with it an enormous 
increase of racial intermixture. The restraint under which 
the slaves had been held shielded them from general asso- 
ciation with the vicious whites. As they realized the fact 
of their freedom, they wandered in great numbers to the 
towns and cities 126 where they gave themselves up to a pro- 
says that "a fruitful woman amongst them being very much valued by 
the planters and a numerous issue esteemed the greatest riches in the 
country." Quoted by Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of 
North Carolina, pp. 57-58. 

126 "The slave-holders of the Southern states . . . are benevolently do- 
ing their best, in one way at least, to raise and improve the degraded 
race, and the bastard population which forms so ominous an element 
in the social safety of their cities . . ." Kemble, Residence on a Geor- 
gian Plantation, p. 14. That it was essentially a city phenomenon in 
the South is correct: that it was the slave-holding class which was re- 
sponsible, wholly or chiefly, is notoriously undemonstrable. 

"" Steiner, A History of Slavery in Connecticut, p. 80, comments upon 
this tendency of the manumitted slaves of Connecticut and attributes 






Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 161* 

longed celebration which was frequently characterized by a 
more or less promiscuous sexual intercourse among the Ne- 
groes themselves and between their women and the vicious 
white elements of the cities. 127 

Wherever the Union armies went in the South, they were 
besieged by an army of Negro women. Says Thomas, a 
severe and unsympathetic but on the whole a frank and 
accurate critic of his own race : 128 

... It may have been the outcroppings of grati- 
tude to Federal victors, or reckless abandon to lust, 
but the inciting cause is immaterial, so long as the 
shameful fact is true, that, wherever our armies were 
quartered in the South the negro women flocked to 
their camps for infamous riot with the white soldiery. 
All occupied cities, suburban rendezvous, and rural 
bivouacs, bore witness to the mad havoc daily wrought 
in black womanhood by our citizen soldiery. We have 
personal knowledge of many Federal officers of high 
station, and some of strong prejudices against the 
race, who openly kept negro mistresses in their army 
quarters ; nor do we doubt that the present lax mo- 
rality everywhere observable among negro womenkind is 
largely due to the licentious freedom which the war 
engendered among them. Slavery had its blighting evils, 
but also its wholesome restraints. 129 

At the present time, the intermixture of the races seems 
to be going on more rapidly than at any time in the past. 130 

it to "their gregarious tendencies." See, also, J. R. Brackett, Notes on 

the Progress of the Colored People Since the War, p. 25. 

127 F. A. Bancroft, The Negro in Politics, pp. 14 ff. 

128 The American Negro, p. 14. 

no It is a significant fact that venereal diseases were practically un- 
known in the South outside of a few cities before the War and the Ne- 
groes were generally free from them. Following the wake of the Union 
armies they rapidly spread throughout the whole black population of the 
South. See, however, p. 151 above. 

**° Sir Harry H. Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 98, points 



162 The Mulatto in the United States 

As has been previously pointed out, some of this increase is 
due to legal intermarriage between the races, and some to 
a more or less ordered but unlawful concubinage of mu- 
latto and Negro girls by white men. Relations of a more 
vicious sort, however, are responsible for the large per 
cent; 131 and these take two forms. On the one hand, there 
is a debauching by white men of the lighter-colored mu- 
latto girls whom they, of course, do not marry. In their 
turn, the mulatto men debauch, but refuse to marry, the 
black girls. 132 

It is necessary to remember that the amount of inter- 
mixture is, in general, proportional to the opportunity for 
contact. Granting numerous individual exceptions, the gen- 
eral statement holds true that the women of a lower race 
everywhere are honored by the attention of the men of a 
superior caste. It is not only true of the Negro, but is 
true of every race or class within a race, which is culturally 
inferior and recognizes itself as inferior. 

In summarizing, we may say that the intermixture of the 
races everywhere has gone on to the extent of the white 
man's wishes. The Negro woman never has objected to, 

out a similar fact in regard to Brazil. "After emancipation the move- 
ment toward a fusion of the races between the ex-slave and the de- 
scendants of his Luso-Brazilian masters went on more rapidly even than 
during the three centuries of mild servitude." 

m The great majority of the mixed-blood race is of course the result 
of marriage between the mulattoes themselves. 

133 Said a Negro Y. M. C. A. Secretary, speaking before a mixed audi- 
ence at the Frederick Douglass Center in Chicago: ". . . No colored* 
girl who comes to Chicago has been in the city forty-eight hours with- 
out being besieged by the colored men and boys of the city whose one 
effort and desire is to work her downfall. We talk of the way in which 
the white men wrong our girls but it is our men and boys who least 
respect and honor them." The black girl is nattered by these attentions, 
especially when they come from mulatto men just as the mulatto girl 
is flattered by the attention of white men. 



Nature of Race Intermixture m United States 163 

and has generally courted, the relationship. It was never 
at any time a matter of compulsion ; on the contrary it was 
a matter of being honored by a man of a superior race. 
Speaking generally, the amount of intermixture is limited 
only by the self-respect of the white man and the com- 
pelling strength of the community sentiment. 

Intermixture went on rapidly during the colonial days 
especially where the Negro was in contact with the inden- 
tured servant class, and in regions where there was a scar- 
city of white women. There was a large intermixture be- 
tween the Indians and the Negroes wherever these two races 
were in contact. Occasionally the Negro men found white 
wives or formed extra-matrimonial alliances with the white 
women of the servant class. As the status of the slave be- 
came better defined and a social difference was made, the 
friendly relation between the Negroes and the white servants 
gave place to a feeling of hatred between the Negro and the 
poor white class. This, together with the more strict dis- 
cipline over the slaves, generally prevented much inter- 
mixture of these classes during the period that slavery ex- 
isted as a national institution. 

Mixture of the races probably went on more slowly dur- 
ing the period that slavery existed as a national institu- 
tion, than in the period before or the period since. Such 
relations as existed between the master class and the slave 
women were generally a kind of sub-surface polygamy and 
were rather a process of further whitening the mixed-blood 
race than a mixture of the whites and blacks. This was dur- 
ing the slavery period, and the same thing is true to-day 
where concubinage exists, the relation being generally one 
between a mulatto woman and a white man; seldom a rela- 
tion between a white man and a Negro woman. 133 

m W. Laird Clowes, Black America, pp. 142-43, points out that "the 



164 The Mulatto in the United States 

The amount of racial intermixture, being conditioned by 
the opportunity for association of the races and especially 
for association of the lower classes, has, in general, been 
greatest where the Negro has been least numerous as com- 
pared to the white race. Consequently the intermixture al- 
ways has been greater in the cities and towns than in the 
rural districts, and relatively greater in the North than 
in the South. Since the freedom of the Negroes and their 
immigration to the towns and cities, intermixture of the 
races in the South has increased. It is in the urban situa- 
tion that the Negro girls and women come into contact most 
frequently with dissolute white men. It is there, too, that 
the opportunity to conceal the relationship makes the con- 
trol of the situation by the prevailing public sentiment less 
effective than in the rural situation. 

Finally, such intermixture of the races as now goes on, 
outside a very little intermarriage, is, for the most part, 
between the vicious elements of both races. Under the slave 
regime, especially as it took place outside the cities, it was 
often a relation between a better class of white men than 
is now usually the case and the choicest and usually the 
lightest-colored Negro girls. At the present time, there is 
a disposition on the part of the better-class whites and a 
growing sentiment among the Negro middle-class to avoid 
such relationships. There is, however, much intermixture 
between certain classes of whites and mulatto girls 134 and 
between mulatto men and Negro girls. It seems to be on 

chief sinners — if sinners they can be called in such connection — are the 
coloured, as distinct from the pure negro, women of the South." 

134 Mr. DuBois has pointed out that the process of intermixture goes 
on between the mulatto girls and the lower grade of whites. ". . . in 
many an instance a prudent negro mother finds it wise to send her 
good-looking yellow daughter to some institution to save her from the 
temptation of association with the lowest grade of white boys in the 



Nature of Race Intermixture in United States 165 

the whole, though not exclusively, a casual association of 
the lower classes of the whites and frequently the lower 
classes of both races. 

neighborhood/' Quoted by Raymond Patterson, The Negro and His 
Needs, p. 35. 

It is interesting to compare this with the situation in Chile where, it 
is said, that "very few prostitutes can make a living" because the half- 
breed girls "are so easy." E. A. Ross, South of Panama, pp. 222-26. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE GROWTH OF THE MULATTO CLASS 

THE first Negroes introduced into the English Colonies 
in America were probably not introduced as slaves. 1 
White servitude was the rule before the Negro came. He 
was brought into more or less intimate contact with these 
white indentured servants, and probably little difference 
was at first made between his status and theirs. It was the 
first contact in any appreciable numbers of the North Euro- 
pean peoples with the African races. Aside from what- 
ever natural antipathy may have existed between people so 
widely different in physical appearance, there was no sen- 
timent of hostility toward the black man, no traditional 
prejudice, and no customary caste feeling of superiority. 2 
Such feeling as did exist was probably not so much a mat- 
ter of race as it was a matter of religion. 3 The Negroes 
were "heathen" and the distinction was between Christians 
and Barbarians rather than between people of white and 

1 "Beyond all question the first negroes brought in were not introduced 
as freemen. The only question is whether, upon entering the colony, 
they became servants or slaves. . . ." J. H. Russell, The Free Negro 
in Virginia, p. 23. See, also, p. 19. 

'Ibid., p. 137. 

H. S. Cooley, A Study of Slavery in New Jersey, p. 57. 

Edward Ingle, The Negro in the District of Columbia, p. 43. 

David Dodge, "The Free Negroes of North Carolina," Atlantic 
Monthly, Vol. 57, p. 24, gives 1830 as the date, and reaction against abo- 
litionism the cause, of change in race prejudice. 

8 J. R. Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, pp. 30 ff. 

166 



The Growth of the Mulatto Class 167 

people of black skin. 

The early colonial conception of slavery was very dif- 
ferent from that which came to prevail at a later time. The 
system was new, imperfect, immature ; there existed no crys- 
tallized body of doctrine as to the slaves' condition or sta- 
tus. Nor was there any strong body of sentiment opposed 
to the institution. The seventeenth century idea of a slave 
was that of a servant for life. It was for the most part 
a domestic institution as opposed to an industrial one. The 
slaves were recognized as persons not, as in the later con- 
ception, things. In most cases, they lived in close relation 
to the family of the master and neither in law nor in cus- 
tom were they regarded in any way as very different from 
other servants and apprentices. They were laborers and 
probably not considered, nor treated very differently from 
other laborers. The very strangeness of the Africans and 
their physical, cultural, and temperamental differences 
from the settlers may have given them a status unlike tha£ 
of other persons in the colonies. Their number was very 
small, however, and it was, in general, a generation after 
their first introduction before black slavery was recognized 
by law. It had existed as a well-established and well-under- 
stood custom long before it anywhere received legal sanc- 
tion. 

But gradually the Negroes acquired or were assigned a 
separate and inferior status. From the status of servants, 
they acquired the status of servants for life, or slaves, and 
finally that of servants in perpetuity. As white servitude 
declined, the status of servant or slave came to be asso- 
ciated with color; and slavery became the presumptive sta- 
tus of all Negroes. Moreover, the early conception of a 
slave as a person serving for life, gave place to the concep- 
tion of a slave as a thing rather than as a person. "Grad- 



168 The Mulatto in the United States 

ually," says Turner, 4 "the very best negroes had come to 
be regarded as of an alien race, and as an outcast and de- 
graded people with whom no intimate association was pos- 
sible." Color prejudice grew up as the characteristics of 
the Negroes became better known and increased in strength 
with the increase in numbers of the blacks. Where the 
numbers remained small, the prejudice remained very largely 
a simple, organic, repulsive reaction against the strange 
and the ugly. As long as the numbers remained so small 
as to constitute no immediate menace, the outward ex- 
pression of the race prejudice remained in abeyance. Where 
the slaves were more numerous and better known, the sen- 
timents and attitudes were more definitely organized and 
the Negro, as such, was assigned a separate and lower eco- 
nomic and social status as the only conceivable working 
relation that could exist between two groups at the oppo- 
site extremes of human culture. 

This race, ever more and more separated from the white 
group by the action of the whites, was in no sense a homo- 
geneous group. 6 Its members were much alike as to color 
and other physical characteristics, but in temperament 7 
and in talent they differed much as other men differ. As 
their domestication progressed, they rapidly became a less 

4 E. R. Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 199. 

5 Ibid., p. 143. See, also, J. C. Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony 
of Virginia, pp. 97 ff. ; and G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race 
in America, Vol. 1, p. 142. 

e There were among the slaves, representatives of many African 
tribes as well as Australian Blacks, natives of Oceania and New 
Guinea. Well over one-half of the slaves, however, were Negroes from 
the West African Coast. See C. H. Otken, Ills of the South, pp. 203 if. 
for an attempt to identify and evaluate the different tribal elements. 

T The very considerable number of Indians and later of Indian-Negro 
intermixtures among the slaves did much to increase the temperamental 
differences. 



The Growth of the Mulatto Class 169 

and less homogeneous group. This natural differentiation 
within the group, due to the different rate at which indi- 
viduals were able to accommodate themselves to civilized 
manners and customs, was being constantly increased by 
the addition of new arrivals from Africa. 8 

But aside from differences in native talent and the length 
of the period of domestication of the Negroes brought to 
America, there were other forces at work tending to bring 
about a differentiation within the Negro group. Such 
things as climate, occupations, types of people in the dif- 
ferent regions or colonies, afforded the black man unequal 
opportunities for assimilating the white man's culture. Di- 
versity in customs, sentiments, racial heredity, and religious 
belief made differences in his treatment. The differences in 
climate and consequently in occupations in various sections 
of the country, made a difference in his work. The wide 
variety of conditions naturally produced a great difference 
in the rate at which the Negroes acquired the outward 
forms of English culture. 

The relative numbers of the Negroes and whites varied 
widely in various sections of the country. In most of the 
northern sections the proportionate number of Negroes was. 
never large. 9 As a result, they came more into contact 
with the white people and consequently their opportunity 
to assimilate the white man's culture was superior to the 
opportunity of those Negroes whose lot fell in sections of 
the country where the proportion of Negroes to whites was 
greater. The negative side of the proposition is of equal 
importance. Where the number of Negroes was small, they 

8 J. S. Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Caro- 
lina, pp. 56-57. 

9 "For the most part, only one or two negroes were owned by any 
person." B. C. Steiner, A History of Slavery in Connecticut, p. 21. 



170 The Mulatto in the United States 

had not the same opportunity to associate with one another 
and so did not have the opportunity to develop and per- 
petuate their African traditions and culture. The Negroes 
more rapidly in some sections than in others, therefore, 
simply because of differences in numbers, threw off the lan- 
guage and traditions of Africa and took on the language 
and customs of their masters. 

Another differentiating factor among the slaves, was the 
lack of uniformity among the slaveholders themselves. 
While as a class the slaveholders represented the educa- 
tional, moral, economic, intellectual, and social aristocracy; 
and stood for all that was best in American life, they were 
by no means all of the same high type. The slave in the 
household of a wealthy, educated, and refined gentleman 
had a vastly better opportunity than did the slave in the 
household of the ignorant and the vicious. 10 In some cases, 
at least, the slaves were given some education, taught the 
religion of their masters and had some opportunity for as- 
sociation with the white people. 11 In other cases they were 
denied these things or had no opportunity to secure them. 

Again, some slaves early received their freedom. This 
was the case in all parts of the country. At a later period, 
it was especially the case in the North where slavery was 
not the profitable economic institution that it proved to be 
in other parts of the country. The actual number freed 

10 Frances A. Kemble, Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Planta- 
tion, p. 24. Ballagh, White Servitude in the Colony of Virginia, pp. 
97 ff. 

11 Susan D. Smedes, A Southern Planter, p. 40. Speaking of Lunsford 
Lane, J. S. Bassett, The Anti-Slavery Leaders in North Carolina, pp. 
61-62, says that "His parents . . . had been kept in the town for family 
service, and thus their offspring had opportunities beyond the other 
negroes. Lunsford early learned to read and write . . . Many men of 
political prominence visited his master's house, and from waiting on 
these he acquired much general information. . . ." 



The Growth of the Mulatto Class 171 

was, of course, greater in the South. There grew up, there- 
fore, a body of free Negroes who, though their condition 
on the whole seems often not to have been superior to that 
of the slaves, 12 were free to follow their own inclinations as 
to employment, the accumulation of property, associations, 
and the like. 

A still more profound difference was that between the 
condition of the town and plantation slaves. In the for- 
mer situation, they were brought into continual contact 
and association with various members of the opposite race. 13 
The plantation Negroes, on the other hand, were isolated 

rt(t . . . Except for natural procreation, the principal additions or 
recruits to this class [free Negroes] throughout this period were the 
result of illegitimacy. There was no tendency to attribute to a few 
negroes and mulattoes of such low origin any higher social standing than 
that occupied by more than 99 per cent of their race and color. . . ." 
Russell, The Free Negro in Virginia, p. 126. However, ". . . before 
the time of the active propagation of the antislavery doctrines, there 
existed little if any prejudice against the education of free colored 
persons." Ibid., p. 137. See, also, pp. 51, 76. 

". . . before 1780 a negro even if free was far from being as free 
as a white man. . . ." Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 113. 
See, also, p. 127. 

". . . Free negroes were despised rather than hated, . . . and though 
some gained and held a place of comparative comfort and security, the 
mass came under the obloquy attached to slavery without participation 
in the benefits enjoyed by the average bondsman." E. Ingle, Southern 
Sidelights, p. 285. See, also, p. 279. See, also, Williams, History of 
the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, pp. 315, 286; Cooley, A Study of 
Slavery in New Jersey, pp. 45 ff. ; Steiner, A History of Slavery in 
Connecticut, p. 23, f. n. ; J. S. Bassett, Slavery in the State of North 
Carolina, pp. 34 ff. ; Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of 
North Carolina, pp. 66 ff. 

13 These slaves "who thus came under the religious influence of their 
masters and mistresses" were most likely the ones first converted to Chris- 
tianity. See Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North 
Carolina, pp. 48-50. See, also, E. Ingle, The Negro in the District of 
Columbia, p. 19. 



172 The Mulatto in the United States 

from the cultured race and in continual association with 
other Negroes. They did not get into touch with the whites. 
They retained, therefore, the language, the customs, and 
the traditions of their African home, for years and gener- 
ations after the more fortunately situated Negroes had cast 
them off. 

. . . The house servants in Charleston or Savan- 
nah, in close personal and confidential touch with the 
master and mistress, and with opportunities to acquire 
a certain degree of book-learning, and much more val- 
uable culture in morality and refinement, were quite 
different from the workers in the rice-fields or among 
the canes, many of whom were steeped in the supersti- 
tion of barbarism and clung to African gibberish fifty 
years after they had passed from the decks of the 
slaver. 14 

In the back country the contact was more intimate than 
on the larger plantations and, while not so varied, was fre- 
quently more effective even than the city life. 

In North Carolina, and elsewhere, no doubt, it was 
noticeable that slavery, . . . was of a milder type in 
the western counties. Here the farms were small. 
Slave-owners had but few slaves. With these they 
mingled freely. They worked with them in the fields, 
plowing side by side. The slave cabins were in the 
same yard with the master's humble home. Slave chil- 
dren and, indeed, slave families were directly under the 
eye of the master, and better still, of the mis- 

LI to N » • • • 

Finally, and possibly of greatest importance, was the 
occupational differentiation among the members of the Ne- 

14 Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 264. See, also, P. A. Bruce, The Plan- 
tation Negro as a Freeman, p. 74. 

15 Bassett, Slavery in the State of North Carolina, p. 8. See, also, 
Dodge, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 57, p. 21. 



The Growth of the Mulatto Class 173 

gro group. Some were house and body servants, some 
were mechanics, some were laborers and field hands. The 
first had the opportunity of intimate daily association with 
the master's family. 16 

The second had not only that association, but the educa- 
tion and training necessary to make of them efficient work- 
men. 

. . . But the superior slave class, and the one that 
represented all that was best in Negro development, 
was the mechanics who were in most cases conspicuous 
for their ability and achievements, for slavery included 
among its mechanical industries every form of handi- 
craft, and as the ability to acquire a mechanical art 
carries with it a fair degree of intelligence, it is not 
surprising that negro artisans, who were carefully se- 
lected for their special lines of work, should have de- 
veloped characters superior to their less fortunate fel- 
lows. 17 

The third class came little into contact with the whites. 18 
On the plantation, they might never see the master and 
seldom any white man from one year's end to another. On 
the larger plantations and in Jamaica, it was even possible 
for the slaves to see little more of the white man than did 
their ancestors in Africa. On these larger plantations, the 
institution was a more strictly economic one in contrast to 
the more patriarchal type it assumed in the back country 
and on the smaller plantations. 

" "I should tell you that Aleck's parents and kindred have always 
been about the house of the overseer, and in daily habits of intercourse 
with him and his wife; and wherever this is the case the effect of in- 
voluntary education is evident in the improved intelligence of the de- 
graded race." Kemble, Residence on a Georgian Plantation, p. 24. See, 
also, W. H. Thomas, The American Negro, p. 15. 

"Ibid., pp. 15-16. See, also, p. 67. 

w Ibid., p. 15. 



superior natural talent, superior advantages, superior ed- 
ucation and training, because of their freedom — there was 
a separation within the Negro group that dates from the 
beginning of the Negroes' American life. Some of the 
classes thus formed were isolated geographically and so- 
cially and found their chief or only associations with others 
of their kind. Other more fortunate classes had the 
advantage of association and contact with the cultured 
race. 

In the ranks of the favored classes, there was a pre- 
ponderance of mulattoes. From their first appearance, and 
increasingly as the system developed and the control of eco- 
nomic forces allowed a body of trained house servants to 
grow, the mulattoes formed the house and body servants. 
When not all could be employed in house work, they were 
most frequently the ones chosen to learn the trades. They 
were the ones employed in skilled work. In any case, they 
came into more close, constant, and intimate association 
with the white people. This was more especially the case 
as the institution became older and the number of slaves 
increased to where a more complete division of labor was 
possible. There are a number of circumstances each suf- 
ficient to account in part for the excess of mulattoes in the 
favored classes. 

In the first place, it was generally believed throughout the 
slavery period that the mulattoes were superior in intelli- 
gence to the black slaves. 19 In spite of their inferior bodily 
strength, they commanded a higher price in the slave mar- 
ket. 20 Because of this belief — the truth or falsity of the 
belief is not here in question — they were most often chosen 

19 Kemble, Residence on a Georgian Plantation, p. 240. 

20 Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color Line, p. 164. 






; ior the tasks that required an exercise ot skill and mtelli- 
' gence. 21 Thomas 22 says that "the Negroes coarse in 
I speech and crude in action were assigned to labor in the 

fields and forest. . . ." After speaking of the class of 

domestic servants he adds : 

. . . Another equally intelligent, but more self-reliant 
class, was the slaves employed in portage in commer- 
cial centers, together with many others engaged in 
occupations which required little supervision, but a 
fair degree of personal intelligence and practical judg- 
ment to perform rightly. 

Because of the presumption of the mulattoes' superior in- 
telligence the industrial as opposed to the common labor 
classes were, so far as the number of mulattoes allowed a 
choice to be made, mulatto classes. 

"In the early days some few, at least, of the mulattoes 
were children of white women. 23 Where this was the case 
the child had the advantage of a white mother's care and 
training and this, even of the type of white woman who 
gave birth to a mulatto child, was doubtless superior to 
the training that could be given a child by the Negro 
mother. Consequently the child, other things equal, would 
be somewhat superior to the child of a black mother. More- 

n "The fact that the majority of those entrusted with responsibility 
and of those who succeeded best in acquiring knowledge, both of letters 
and of industrial arts, during slavery were mulattoes, and the fact that 
the majority of those of the present who have made creditable attain- 
ments are of mixed blood, go to prove that a mixture of white blood 
has had much to do in the matter of higher ambition, mental force, and 
efficiency of the talented few. . . ." C. H. McCord, The American Negro 
as a Defective, Dependent and Delinquent, p. 50. 

23 The American Negro, pp. 15, 16. 

23 See pp. 152 ff. above. 



176 The Mulatto in the United States 

over, as the status of the child followed that of the mother, I 
it would, in most cases, ultimately become a free man or I 
woman with whatever advantages went with the status. I 
Such ancestry, consequently, tended to increase the percent- 
age of mulattoes in the free Negro group. 

In some cases, there existed a paternal or other blood 
relationship between the mulatto slave and the master. 
How numerous such cases were, it is wholly impossible to 
say ; 24 but where such relationships existed, the individual 
was doubtless favored over other individuals of the servile 
class. 25 He was likely to receive his freedom, generally with 
that of his mother and often with some property for a start 
in life. 26 But whether or not such individuals went to swell 
the ranks of the free Negro group, they were, by heredity 27 

24 See p. 139 above. 

25 "Indeed it was notorious that freemen sold their own mulatto chil- 
dren born in Virginia." J. P. Dunn, Indiana, p. 223. This was prob- 
ably more notorious than accurate. There were doubtless such cases 
but the stories that the slave-owning class made this a practice are no 
longer a part of the mental furnishings of any one of standard de- 
velopment. ". . . Everywhere there were usually a number of prosperous 
free negroes. Most of them were mulattoes, not a few of them were 
set free by their fathers and thus they fell easily into the life around 
them. This mulatto class was partly due to the easy sexual relations be- 
tween the races. A white man who kept a negro mistress ordinarily 
lost no standing in society on account of it. The habit, though not com- 
mon, was not unusual. Often the mistress was a slave, and thus there 
were frequent emancipations either by gift or by purchase of liberty, 
till the stricter spirit of the laws after 1831 checked it." Bassett, Slavery 
in the State of North Carolina, pp. 45-46. 

29 See Booker T. Washington, Story of the Negro, Vol. 1, pp. 227 if. 

27 So far as a sex relation exists anywhere between a master and a 
subject race it is always the choicest females who are so honored. The 
statement in the text, therefore, refers to the colored side of the mu- 
lattoes' ancestry. There is no implication of or denial of fundamental 
racial superiority. Their mothers were the choicest individuals of their 
race. 



The Growth of the Mulatto Class 177 

and training, the best specimens of the race and raised the 
percentage of mulattoes in the favored classes. 

But the most important reason that the mulatto was 
chosen in preference to the Negro for any employment that 
brought him into association with the master family was 
the fact that he was a better looking animal. 28 He made 
a better appearance. 29 For this reason he was selected as 
the house and body servant. This favored class of domes- 
tic servants "were usually bright and intelligent negroes 
who, through contact and sympathetic supervision, acquired 
in many instances a training in manners and methods of 
incomparable grace and efficiency." 30 

The Negroes everywhere made distinctions among them- 
selves. 31 The free Negroes recognized the difference between 
themselves and the slaves. The town Negroes considered 
themselves superior to the country Negroes. In the same 
way, the house servants held themselves superior to the field 
hands. The basis on which the distinctions were most usu- 
ally made was that of color. The free Negroes were very 
frequently mulattoes. 32 The house servants also were fre- 

28 Sir Harry H. Johnston, "Racial Problems and the Congress of 
Races," Contemporary Review, Vol. 100, p. 154. 

29 "She was quite indifferent to the public opinion that required only 
fine-looking, thoroughly trained servants about the establishment of a 
gentleman." Smedes, A Southern Planter, p. 65. 

30 Thomas, The American Negro, p. 15. ". . . The mulattoes were em- 
ployed in towns. ... I have seen great plantations with not one of them 
— all black." Bassett, Slavery in the State of North Carolina, p. 90, 
quoting a correspondent, apparently with approval. 

31 The various opprobrious epithets applied to members of the race, 
and to the opposite race as well, have always been most widely used 
by the Negroes themselves. "Crackers," "twisters," "niggers," "burr- 
heads," "mule-niggers," "polka dots" and the like, if not invented by 
Negroes were and are more often used by them than by the opposite race. 
See The Chicago Defender, Editorial "So Say We," 10-9-1915. 

32 In 1860, for e.g., 2,554s of the 3,441 free Negroes were mulattoes. 



J 



178 The Mulatto in the United States 

quently of mixed-blood and the same was true to a greater i> 
extent of the town Negroes than of the plantation Negroes " 
and lower-class slaves. The mulatto slaves held themselves 
superior to the black slaves and claimed privileges on ac- 
count of color. The white man considered the mulatto 
superior to the black man and the mulatto, taking over the 
white man's way of thinking, claimed membership in the 
superior ranks on account of his relative absence of color. 

The mulatto woman, Sally, accosted me again to- 
day and begged that she might be put to some other 
than field labor. Supposing she felt herself unequal 
to it, I asked her some questions, but the principal 
reason she urged for her promotion to some less labor- 
ious kind of work was, that hoeing in the field was so 
hard to her on "account of her color" and she therefore 
petitions to be allowed to learn a trade. I was much 
puzzled at this reason for her petition, but was pres- 
ently made to understand that, being a mulatto, she 
considered field labor a degradation ; her white bas- 
tardy appearing to her a title to consideration in my 
eyes. The degradation of these people is very complete, 
for they have accepted the contempt of their masters 
to that degree that they profess, and really seem to 
feel it for themselves, and the faintest admixture of 
white blood in their black veins appears at once, by 
common consent of their own race, to raise them in 
the scale of humanity. I had not much sympathy for 
this petition. 83 

While the distinctions among the members of the race on 
the basis of color were everywhere made, the "color line" 
was most carefully and rigidly drawn where there existed 

In New Orleans 7,357 of the 9,084 free Negroes were mixed-bloods. 
Elsewhere the proportion was usually not so high but was everywhere 
marked. See notes 46, 47, p. 116 above. 

" Kemble, Residence on a Georgian Plantation, p. 194. 



The Growth of the Mulatto Class 179 

the largest body of free Negroes. Evans says : 34 

I was told by an intelligent light-coloured woman 
whom I met in Alabama, who was married to a well-to- 
do mulatto there, and who came from Charleston, 
South Carolina, that in her early days in that city she 
had no black associates, and that between the light- 
coloured and black there was a gulf fixed similar to 
that separating the former from the whites. Later in 
life when she moved into Alabama she found there no 
such class distinctions between black and coloured. 
Her ancestors on both sides had been freed men for 
two generations, the family owned property, and had 
a recognized position in Charleston. 

Fannie Jackson, a mulatto who is said to have been the 
first Negro woman to graduate from a reputable college, 
testifies to this spirit of superiority on the part of the mu- 
lattoes. 35 

So I went out to service. Oh, the hue and cry there 
was, when I went out to live! Even my aunt spoke of 
it; she had a home to offer me; but the "slavish" ele- 
ment was so strong in me that / make myself a servant. 
Ah, how those things cut me then! But I knew I was 
right, and I kept straight on. 

Frederick Douglass testifies to the same fact 36 as does 
Mr. DuBois, 37 Edward Blyden 38 and, naively or otherwise, 

34 Maurice S. Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 93. 
See, also, Ray Stannard Baker, "The Tragedy of the Mulatto," The 
American Magazine, Vol. 65, p. 588. 

35 J. W. Cromwell, The Negro in American History, p. 213. 
ze Life and Times, p. 458. 

37 ". . . The thing that makes the mulatto especially useful is that, 
with the white man, he shares the pride of his white blood and is less 
likely than the black to submit to artificial distinctions of race where 
nature has bridged them. . ." Crisis, Editorial, 9-1913. 

88 E. W. Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, p. 18. 



180 The Mulatto in the United States 

most of the other Negroes who have become articulate. 39 
The white man always has considered the mulatto superior 
to the black Negro ; and the mulatto, taking over the white 
man's way of thinking, considered himself superior and at- 
tributed the superiority to the fact of his mixed blood. He 
formed exclusive organizations and claimed superiority on 
the basis of color. 

The Negroes in general accepted the assumption of supe- 
riority on the part of the mulattoes and, like the mulatto 
and the white man, attributed the observed superiority to 
the admixture of white blood. 40 Speaking of the boat songs 
of a certain river plantation group, Miss Kemble says : 41 

One of their songs displeased me not a little, for it 
embodied the opinion that "twenty-six black girls not 
make mulatto yellow girl"; and I told them I did not 
like it they have omitted it since. This desperate ten- 
dency to despise and undervalue their own race and 
color, which is one of the very worst results of their 
abject condition, is intolerable to me. 

f.The ideal of the Negro was thus the light-colored man. 
He envied him his color 42 and his superiority. Often he 

89 Thomas, The American Negro, pp. 186, 408, 407. 
T. T. Fortune, "Place in American Life," in Washington, The Negro 
Problem, dd. 227, 226. 

The Boston Reliance, 3-13-1915. 

The Kansas City Herald, 2-13-1915. 

The Kentucky {Louisville) Reporter, 1-23-1915. 

The Washington Sun, 4-9-1915. 

40 Patience Pennington, A Woman Rice Planter, p. 235. 

41 Residence on a Georgian Plantation, p. 219. See, also, Pennington, 
A Woman Rice Planter, p. 387; and Blyden as quoted in the Crisis, 
9-1913, pp. 229-30. 

43 Thomas, Hie American Negro, p. 67. 

Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, pp. 24-25, 89. 

Baker, American Magazine, Vol. 65, p. 589. 



The Growth of the Mulatto Class 181 

hated him for his ambition to escape from the race and 
align himself with the whites. 43 

•^Once started, the mulatto class tended to perpetuate it- 
self. However much the Negro hated the exclusive mulatto, 
every black man was anxious to gain admission to the mu- 
latto class. Admission, in the absence of mixed-blood, was 
most readily obtained by marriage into- the group. Con- 
sequently, it was the almost universal desire of the Negro 
to marry light-colored women 44 and, to the extent of their 
importance, they were successful in doing so. 45 A roll of 
the Negroes who have married white women or light-col- 
ored mulattoes would include the great majority of the 
men who have gained any distinction either within or with- 
out the race. 

>£Thus by association, education, and tradition, the mu- 
lattoes came to be superior men. They had white blood 
and because of their white blood they had superior advan- 
tages. The white man considered them superior and, as a 
consequence of this, they considered themselves superior. 46 
This gave them a confidence in themselves that the black 
Negroes did not have. They felt more important. Among 
the Negro group they enjoyed a prestige because of their 

43 "The same feeling [caste feeling of white superiority] is frequently 
met with among sober-minded blacks, who, much to one's surprise some- 
times, are found to resent the ambitious attempts of their fellows, gen- 

, erally mulattoes, to rise above their own race and align themselves with 
the whites." B. W. Smith, The Color Line, pp. 173-74. See, also, Mon- 
roe Work, "The Passing Tradition and the African Civilization," The 
Journal of Negro History, Vol. 1, Number 1, p. 35. 

44 Baker, The American Magazine, Vol. 65, p. 589. 

45 Bruce, The Plantation Negro as a Freeman, pp. 143-44. 

48 "In discussions of the race problem there is one factor of supreme 
importance which has been so far disregarded ... to wit, the opinion 
or idea which a race has of itself and the influence exerted by this 
idea." A. Fouill6e, "Race from the Sociological Standpoint," Inter- 
Racial Problems, pp. 24 ff. 



182 The Mulatto in the United States 

mixed blood, and this reacted to further innate the mu- 
lattoes' idea of themselves. 47 So, entirely aside from any 
question of racial superiority, the mulatto is and always has 
been the superior man. 48 

47 See Raymond Patterson, The Negro and His Needs, p. 40. 
18 See, E. B. Renter, "The Superiority of the Mulatto," American Jour- 
nal of Sociology, Vol. 23, pp. 83-106. 






CHAPTER VIII 

THE LEADING MEN OF THE NEGRO RACE 

IT has been pointed out frequently both by the friends 
and the critics of the race, that the Negro in America 
has not as yet produced an individual entitled to rank 
among the world's geniuses. Kelly Miller x has said that, 
judged by European standards, the race has produced no 
man of even secondary rank. Mr. DuBois would seem to 
agree that this is a fair statement of fact. 2 Indeed, it 
seems to be claimed nowhere by serious students that the 
race has produced any man whose achievements have not 
been surpassed by scores of men of a different racial ex- 
traction. 

Whatever may be the amount of truth in this generally 
accepted belief — and there is no intention here to prove or 
disprove it, nor to affirm nor deny it — it is certainly true 
that the race has differentiated during its life in America. 
The difference separating the extremes within the race has 
become very great. Some individuals have, perhaps, not 
greatly advanced beyond the standards of life of their Af- 
rican ancestors ; others have in all essential respects meas- 
ured up to the best standards of modern civilized life. It 
is with these latter individuals, quite regardless of the de- 
gree of their absolute native ability, with whom we are here 
concerned. It is not a question of genius or even of emi- 

1 Race Adjustment, p. 188. 

•W. E. B. DuBois, "The Advance Guard of the Race," The Book- 
lover's Magazine, Vol. 2, p. 3. 

183 



184 The Mulatto in the United States 

nence; it is a question of relative superiority and of lead- 
ership. It is relative and not absolute superiority that de- 
termines the value of the individual in a social situation. 

Quite aside, then, from all question of genius, the Negro 
race in America has produced a number of individuals who 
in spite of, or because of, their black blood have reached a 
level of achievement well above the average of either race. 
Judged by any fair standard there have been and are to-day 
Negroes who deserve to be ranked as exceptional men in 
that their accomplishments are well above the level of the 
accomplishments of other individuals of their group. 3 It 
is true that the number is not great. Compared with the 
great number of the race it must even be admitted that the 
number is pitifully small. But that there are successful 
men, men of ability and of talent, among the race is not to 
be denied. They are to be found in greater or lesser num- 
bers in all the various lines of human endeavor: in indus- 
trial and commercial pursuits ; in the learned professions ; 
in literature, art, and music; wherever, in short, are to be 
found the men of other races. 

When the existence of such prominent men is pointed out 
it is frequently asserted that they are not Negroes but mu- 
lattoes. "Although," says Ingalls, 4 "more than two hun- 
dred thousand enlisted in the Union armies, no full-blood 
negro holds a commission in the army or navy and in the 
militia their organization is distinct." "We . . . find," 
says Stone, 5 "that where the Negro participates to any ex- 
tent in the administration of affairs . . . the race is almost 
invariably represented solely by its mulatto type." "Appar- 
ently, the mulatto as a whole is superior to the pure African 

3 DuBois, Booklover's Magazine, Vol. 2, p. 4. 

4 John J. Ingalls, "Always a Problem," Chicago Tribune, 5-28-1893. 
3 A. F. Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, p. 27. 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 185 

Negro," says Chancellor David Starr Jordan. 6 "Ninety 
per cent of all the leaders of the race are the offspring of the 
Caucasian," says Holm. 7 Belin says that "The so-called 
'negroes,' who have in any way distinguished themselves 
above their fellows, are not full-blood negroes, but half- 
breeds." 8 "The recognized leaders of the race are almost 
invariably persons of mixed blood, and the qualities which 
have made them leaders are derived certainly in part and 
perhaps mainly from their white ancestry." 9 

Shufeldt 10 quotes Keane as saying that "No full-blood 
Negro ever has been distinguished as a man of science, a 
poet, or an artist, and the fundamental equality claimed for 
him by ignorant philanthropists is belied by the whole his- 
tory of the race throughout the historic period." To the 
same point Dr. Carl Vogt n says that : 

As a proof in favor of the artistic and scientific ca- 
pacity of the Negro, we find cited in nearly all the 
works the instance of Mr. Lille Geoffray of Marti- 
nique, an engineer and mathematician and correspond- 
ing member of the French Academy. The fact is that 
the mathematical performances of the above gentleman 
were of such a nature that, had he been born in Ger- 
many of white parents, he might, perhaps, have quali- 
fied as a mathematical teacher in a middle-class school, 
or engineer at a railway ; but having been born in Mar- 



8 



"Biological Effects of Race Movements," Popular Science Monthly, 
Vol. 87, pp. 267-70. 

7 J. J. Holm, Race Assimilation or the Fading of the Leopard's Spots, 
p. 279. 

8 H. E. Belin, "A Southern View of Slavery," American Journal of 
Sociology, Vol. 13, p. 518. 

9 Encyclopedia Britannica: Negro. 

10 R. W. Shufeldt, The Negro: A Menace to American Civilization- 
p. 43. 

11 Lectures on Man, pp. 192-93. 



The Mulatto in the United States 

tinique of colored parents, he shone like a one-eyed man 
among the totally blind. M. Lille Geoffray, besides, 
was not a pure Negro, but a mulatto. 






By other writers, all this is flatly contradicted. The 
equality of races is stoutly asserted and the superiority of 
the mulatto to the full-blooded Negro as stoutly denied. 
Mr. Washington on a number of occasions stated his belief 
in the equality of the Negro to the mulatto. The A. M. E. 
Church Review 12 says editorially that ". . . we colored 
people can never subscribe to the doctrine of the superi- 
ority of the mulatto over the black element in brain power." 
But of all those who have expressed their opinion, Mr. Du- 
Bois seems to be the most emphatic and the most extreme 
in his assertions on this subject. "If we study cases of 
ability and goodness and talent among the American Ne- 
groes, we shall," he says, "have difficulty in laying down 
any clear thesis as to effect of amalgamation. As a mat- 
ter of historic fact the colored people of America have pro- 
duced as many remarkable black men as mulattoes." 13 

The purpose here is not to evaluate the work done by 
these remarkable men. It is not intended to determine what 
place they do or should occupy as compared with success- 
ful white men in similar lines of endeavor. It is not even 
intended to show in how far they have risen above the aver- 
age of their fellows. The purpose is merely to determine, 
on the basis of the most complete and representative lists 
of exceptional Negroes that have been compiled, in how far 
they are black men and in how far they are men of mixed 
blood. lb is the assumption and the assertion that there 
are as many black men as mulattoes among the exceptional 
men of the race that we propose to submit to the test of 

"October 1915, p. 133. 

13 DuBois, Booklovefs Magazine, Vol. 2, p. 15. 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 187 

cases that Mr. DuBois suggests. 14 

In all other countries where a mulatto group exists along- 
side of a group of unmixed blood, there seems to be a pre- 
ponderance of mulattoes among the gifted individuals of 
the race. In Jamaica the educated and professional classes 
of the race are mulattoes. 15 In Haiti the ten per cent of 
mixed-bloods have constituted the ruling and professional 
classes since the massacre of the French. 16 In South Af- 
rica the mulattoes are "the intellectual aristocracy of the 
dark-skinned population." 1T In Brazil it is the mixed- 
bloods who have attained to a degree of civilization, while 
the purer-blooded natives and Negroes seem to have cast 
off, partially at least, the degree of civilization acquired un- 
der the regime of slavery. 18 Elsewhere, the same thing 
seems to be true. 19 The mixed-bloods in every racial situa- 

14 There is, of course, no intention of "proving" by such a method any 
"thesis as to the effect of amalgamation." The effect of amalgamation 
is a biological problem with which we are not here concerned. More- 
over it is not susceptible of demonstration by the means that Mr. Du- 
Bois suggests. It is the final assertion, that among the exceptional men 
of the Negro race there are as many black as mulatto men, that we 
propose to examine. 

"William Thorp, "How Jamaica Solves the Negro Problem," World's 
Work, Vol. 8, pp. 4908-13. 

W. P. Livingstone, "The West Indian and American Negro," North 
American Review, Vol. 185, p. 647. 

Stone, Sfaidies in the American Race Problem, p. 27. 

19 H. V. H. Prichard, Where Black Rules White, pp. 80 ff. 

Earl Finch, "The Effects of Racial Miscegenation," Inter-Racial Prob- 
lems, p. 110. 

17 H. E. S. Freemantle, The New Nation, pp. 217-18. See, also, M. S. 
Evans, Black and White in South East Africa, pp. 289-90. £lis£e 
Rectus, Africa, Vol. 4, p. 149. 

18 Jean Baptiste de Lacerda, "The Metis or Half-Breeds of Brazil," 
Inter-Racial Problems, pp. 380-82. 

"Charles E. Woodruff, "Some Laws of Racial and Intellectual Devel- 
opment," Journal of Race Development, Vol. 3, p. 175. 

Friedrich Ratzel, The History of Mankind, Vol. 1, p. 397. 



188 The Mulatto m the United States 

tion seem to have risen, as a group, above the status of their 
darker kin, while the individuals of talent who have appeared 
— the individuals who have made some conspicuous success 
in life — are, with rare exception, men of mixed blood. 

Historically the same thing seems to hold true. Of the 
names of Negroes coming down to us from the past, there 
is a preponderating majority of men of mixed blood and a 
scarcity, almost an entire absence, of men of unmixed Ne- 
gro ancestry. Alexandre Dumas, by all odds the most 
gifted individual whom history shows to have possessed Ne- 
gro blood, was probably a quadroon. 20 Alexander Pushkin, 
the Russian poet, had a trace of Negro blood. 21 It is some- 
times said that Robert Browning had a trace of Negro 
blood, but there seems to be absolutely no basis for this 
tradition. 22 About the close of the eighteenth century, 
Abbe Gregoire published a volume 23 to prove the equality 
of the Negro intellect. This volume contained the biogra- 
phies of fifteen Negroes 24 each one of whom, according to 

30 One grandmother was a Negress of San Domingo but whether of 
full-blood is not known. See Encyclopedia Britannica. Burr, The 
Autobiography, p. 155, speaking of Dumas' Memoirs, says: "His own 
figure is painted therein in crude, staring colors, as bright as life . . . 
a figure out of Balzac and the Comedie Humaine. Part Napoleonic sol- 
dier, part San Dominican negro, ... ye gods of the drama, what an 
heredity! ... he seems to us a savage tale-teller, seated at the camp- 
fire, holding his companions breathless. Alternately lazy and energetic, 
sensual and shrewd, he has all the undiluted primitive forces of huge 
vitality and huge laughter." 

21 One-sixteenth or less Negro blood. His maternal great-grandfather 
was a Negro but whether of full-blood is not certain. 

M ". . . There is no ground for the statement that the family was 
partly of Jewish Origin." Encyclopedia Britannica. 

28 H. Gregoire, An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Fac- 
ulties, and Literature of Negroes; followed with an account of the Life 
and Works of Fifteen Negroes and Mulattoes, distinguished in Science, 
Literature and Arts. Translated by D. B. Warden, 1810. 

w Higiemonde or Higiemondo: an Indian painter "commonly named 



1 The Leading Men of the Negro Race 189 

Van Evrie, was a man of mixed blood. 25 Francois Domi- 
nique Toussaint, the guerilla chief of the Negro insurrec- 
tionists in Haiti, seems not to have been a full-blooded Ne- 
gro. 26 Mr. Lille Geoffray of Martinique, engineer, mathe- 
matician and corresponding member of the French acad- 

the negro," p. 171. Gregoire seems not certain that there was such a 
man or if there was that he was a Negro. 

Annibal: an officer in the Russian artillery at the time of Peter the 
Great. 

The Son of Annibal: a mulatto. 

Anthony William Amo: born in Guinea, educated in England. 

L'Islet Geoffray: a mulatto. 

James Durham: mulatto slave, practiced medicine in New Orleans. 

Thomas Fuller: mathematical prodigy. Apparently a Negro. 

Othello: published "An Essay Against the Slavery of Negroes." 
"Othello" was a pseudonym. The race of the writer is not known. There 
seems to be no reason for calling him a Negro. 

Benjamin Banneker: a mulatto. 

Ottobah Cugoano: published his reflections of the slave trade and the 
slavery of Negroes. 

James Eliza John Capitein: educated in Holland. Wrote some Latin 
verses. 

William Francis: Jamaican Negro of the eighteenth century. Edu- 
cated in England. Taught Latin and mathematics in Jamaica. 

Olandad, or Gustavus Vassa: brought to England as a child; wrote 
memoirs. 

Ignatius Sancho: an English butler. An edition of his letters was 
printed after his death. 

Phyllis Wheatley Peters: apparently black. 

25 White Supremacy and Negro Subordination, p. 163. Van Evrie 
would seem to be in error here. Tradition has it that both Thomas 
Fuller and Mrs. Peters were full-blood Negroes. See p. 190 below. 

29 ". . . Judging from his pictures, you cannot but form the opinion 
that Toussaint was not a pure-blooded negro: the features, the shape 
of the head, the setting of the eyes are all so many strong reasons 
against such a supposition." Prichard, Where Black Rules White, p. 
278. For a contrary opinion see the Negro Year Book, 1914-15, p. 75. 
C. V. Roman, American Civilization and the Negro, opposite p. 8, gives 
a picture of Toussaint and calls him a "full-blood." Either the picture 
or the caption is in error: the picture is not that of a full-blood Negro. 



190 The Mulatto in the United States 

emy, was a mulatto. 27 

In America, even at an early date, a number of members 
of the race had risen to some prominence. The most noted 
of these was, perhaps, Phyllis Wheatley Peters. Born in 
Africa, about 1T50, she was presumably a full-blooded Ne- 
gri* though there is absolutely nothing known concerning 
her ancestry. She was sold into slavery and in 1761 she 
was brought to America where she served in the household 
of Mrs. John Wheatley of Boston and from whom she re- 
ceived some slight instruction in English and Latin. She 
went to London with the son of her mistress. While there 
she published a small volume of poems upon which rests her 
claim to fame. She certainly was not a poet, 28 but her ef- 
forts were an evidence of the race's capacity for intellec- 
tual improvement. 

Thomas Fuller, 29 a mathematical prodigy of the same 
period, seems also to have been a black man. He enjoyed 
considerable local fame because of his power to perform 
complicated mathematical calculations. He was unable to 
read or write and, as is usual with prodigies of this sort, 
seems to have been a mental defective. 

Benjamin Banneker seems to have a decidedly better 
claim to prominence than either of the preceding. He is 
said to have constructed the first clock made in America ; 
later he published an almanac. 30 Banneker was a free mu- 
latto 31 of Maryland. He was a neighbor and friend of 

M Vogt, Lectures on Man, pp. 192-93. 

28 B. G. Brawley, The Negro in Literature and Art, p. 13. 
C. G. Woodson, History of Negro Education, p. 90. 

29 G. B. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, 
p. 399. 

Woodson, History of Negro Education, pp. 87-88. 
80 Woodson, History of Negro Education, pp. 90-91, 62-63. 
"Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, Vol. 1, pp. 385, 
390. See p. 131 above. 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 191 

Ellicott who acted for him in the capacity of a press agent. 
He seems to have received assistance from Ellicott, but the 
extent of his indebtedness is uncertain. 

James Durham 32 of Philadelphia and later of New Or- 
leans was born a slave in 1767. From his master, who was 
a physician, he learned to read and write and to compound 
simple medicines. When freed by his master, he built up a 
successful medical practice among the mulatto Creoles in 
New Orleans. Durham was a mulatto. 

Most of the prominent Negroes of the time were preachers. 
George Leile, 33 who preached in Georgia and later founded 
the first Negro Baptist colony in Jamaica, was a mulatto. 

Andrew Bryan, the founder of the African Baptist 
church, was a man of mixed blood, as was John Chavis, 34 
an itinerant preacher of the Methodist church. John Glouce- 
ster of Tennessee, founder of the African Presbyterian 
church in Philadelphia, was probably a black man. Henry 
Evans, an itinerant preacher of the Presbyterian church, 
seems also to have been a Negro of pure blood. 35 Lemuel 
Haynes, the first Negro Congregational minister, was a 
mulatto, as was Richard Allen, the founder of the Negro 
Methodist Church. 

In the decade preceding the Civil War, owing to the fact 
that the emotional attitude of the people of the North mag- 
nified out of all focus the doings of any black man, it is 

83 Negro Year Book 1914-1915, p. 334. 

J. A. Kenney, The Negro in Medicine, p. 6. 

Woodson, History of Negro Education, pp. 88-89. 

83 Also known as George Sharp. 

84 J. S. Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the Colony of North Caro- 
lina, p. 73, says Chavis was a full-blood Negro. This seems to be an 
error. See, also, the same writer's article in the American Journal of 
Sociology, Vol. 13, p. 826. 

8B Bassett, Slavery and Servitude in the State of North Carolina, p. 57. 






192 The Mulatto in the United States 

somewhat surprising that there did not appear a group of 
prominent men of the race. The only one, however, who 
succeeded in rising above mediocrity was Frederick Doug- 
lass, an anti-slavery agitator and journalist. His father 
was a white man 36 and his mother a slave of unknown color, 
but with sufficient Indian intermixture to show prominently 
in the features as well as in the disposition of her noted 
son. 37 

During the entire period that slavery existed as a na- 
tional institution, individuals frequently escaped from the 
border states into free territory. Especially during the 
latter years of the slave regime, there were a considerable 
number of these runaway slaves. An organized and elaborate 
system of criminal procedure grew up toward the end of the 
slave period and became known as the Underground Rail- 
road. As was to be expected, the free Negroes and escaped 
slaves took some part in this outlawry. The Year Book 38 
names the most notorious of these Negroes and gives 
sketches of their careers. 39 Of the fifteen, Harriet Tubman 

89 New International Encyclopaedia: Frederick Douglass. 

87 Booker T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, Vol. 1, p. 132. 

88 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, pp. 102-06. 



89 



William Wells Brown 


mulatto 


Frederick Douglass 


mulatto 


James Forten 


mulatto 


Mifflin Wistar Gibbs 


mulatto 


Mrs. F. E. W. Harper 


mulatto 


Lewis Hayden 


mulatto 


Lunsford Lane 


mulatto 


Robert Purvis 


mulatto 


Charles Lenox Remond 


mulatto 


J. B. Russwurm 


mulatto 


William Still 


mulatto 


Sojourner Truth 


mulatto 


Harriet Tubman 


black 


David Walker 


mulatto 


William Whipper 


mulatto 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 19S 

seems to have been a black woman ; the other fourteen were 
mulattoes. 40 

Since the Civil War, all lines of endeavor in America 
have been open to the Negro. In some cases he has met 
with prejudice and discrimination; in other cases his color 
has given him a prestige not enjoyed by his white com- 
petitor. 41 At the present time, there is no insuperable, ex- 
ternal obstacle to the Negro's entrance to, and success in, 
any of the ordinary lines of human endeavor, as is evidenced 
by the fact that Negroes have entered all of them and that 
individuals of the race have achieved some degree of success 
in each of the different lines. 

There have been compiled and published, from time to 
time, lists of these Negroes who have risen to prominence. 
It may be that these lists do not contain the names of all 
the successful Negroes. It may also be true that many of 
the names which appear are those of men who have shown 
no great talent or achieved no great renown. But it may 
be fairly assumed that they are, in most cases at least, men? 
of some importance and prominence in their community and 
that they are leaders in a larger or smaller way within their 
racial group. If this be so, a determination of the ancestry 
of these men should be a fair index as to the percentage of 
mulattoes and full-blooded Negroes among the leaders and 
other prominent men of the race. 

Mr. DuBois has compiled such a list, 42 illustrated by full 
page photographs of ten living 43 Negroes who represent 

40 J. S. Bassett, Anti-Slavery Leaders of North Carolina, p. 321, says 
Lane's parents were "of pure African descent." This is emphatically 
denied by Negroes who knew him personally. 

41 B. W. Smith, The Color Line: A Brief in Behalf of the Unborn, 
pp. 43-44. 

43 DuBois, Booklover's Magazine, Vol. 2, pp. 2-14. 
"July, 1903, 



194 



The Mulatto in the United States 






the "Advance Guard of the Race." 44 To the list, the ed- 
itors add a similar sketch and a similar photograph of Mr. 
DuBois. These men "measured by any fair standard of 
human accomplishment . . . are distinctly men of mark." 45 
Regarding the racial ancestry of these men Mr. DuBois 
says : 46 

... Of the men I have named, three are black, two 
are brown, two are half-white, and three are three- 
fourths white. ... If we choose among these men the 
two of keenest intellect, one is black and the other 
brown ; if we choose the three of strongest character, 
two are yellow and one is black. If we choose three 
according to their esthetic sensibility, one is black, 
one is yellow, and one three-fourths white. 

Seven of the ten are admittedly mulatto, so may be 
passed without comment. Three are said to be "black." But 
by this term, it cannot be meant to assert that they are 
full-blood Negroes. The only three men in the list who 
could possibly be called "black" are Dunbar, the poet; 
Miller, the mathematician ; and Woods, the electrician. Of 
these men Dunbar, according to all accounts, was a real 
Negro. Kelly Miller is a brown mulatto. 47 Granville T. 

"Charles W. Chestnutt 

Paul Laurence Dunbar 

Francis J. Grimke 

Kelly Miller 

Edward H. Morris 

Henry O. Tanner 
W. L. Taylor 

Booker T. Washington 

Daniel H. Williams 

Granville T. Woods 
45 Booklover's Magazine, Vol. !~, r . ~. 
"Ibid., p. 15. 

* T W. T. Thomas, "Race Psychology," American Journal of Sociology, 
Vol. 17, p. 746, speaks of Miller as a "full-blooded black," The At- 



Novelist 


mulatto 


Poet 


black 


Clergyman 


mulatto 


Mathematician 


black 


Lawyer 


mulatto 


Artist 


mulatto 


Business man 


mulatto 


Politician 


mulatto 


Surgeon 


mulatto 


Electrician 
n 8. 


Australian-Malay 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 195 

Woods seems to have no drop of African blood. He is an 
Australian by birth 48 and by ancestry a mixture of Malay 
[ndian and Australian Black. 49 Of these ten names, then, 
3ne is that of a Negro, one that of an Australian of mixed 
ancestry, and the remaining eight are mulattoes. If Mr. 
DuBois be included in the list, the count then stands one 
Negro to ten men of mixed blood. 

In 1903, the Pott Publishing Company issued a small 
volume of essays by Negroes discussing different phases of 
bhe Negro problem in America. 50 Seven writers contributed 
to the volume. 51 Of these men, one was a black Negro and 
six were mulattoes. Of the six, two were men of about 
equal parts of white and black; while the other four were 
from three-fourths to fifteen-sixteenths white. 

In one of the essays in the volume, Mr. DuBois again 
treats the subject of the Negro leaders under the caption 

lantic Advocate calls him a "full-blooded colored man." He seems 
to consider himself a Negro and is generally so claimed by the race. 
As we are concerned here with social and not with biological facts we 
have placed Professor Miller in the full-blood group in spite of his 
mixed ancestry. See note 44, p. 194 above. 

48 Miller, Race Adjustment, p. 197, says that Woods was born in 
Ohio. 

49 "His mother's father was a Malay Indian, and his other grand- 
parents were by birth full-blooded savage Australian aborigines born 
in the wilds back of Melbourne. ... At the age of 16, Woods was 
brought by his parents to America. . . ." S. W. Balch, "Electrical Mo- 
tor Regulation," Cosmopolitan, Vol. 18, p. 762. 

50 The Negro Problem: A Series of Articles by Representative Amer- 
ican Negroes of To-day. 

61 C. W. Chestnutt mulatto 

W. E. B. DuBois mulatto 

Paul L. Dunbar black 

T. Thomas Fortune mulatto 

H. T. Kealing mulatto 

Wilford H. Smith mulatto 

Booker T. Washington mulatto 



196 



The Mulatto in the United States 



"The Talented Tenth" and finds twenty-one men and two 
Tomcn worthy of this title. Supplying the initials, supple- 
menting the list with an indication of the ground on which 
their claim to greatness rests and an indication of their 
ancestry, we have: 



Ira Aldridge 


Negro actor 


mulatto 


Benjamin Banneker 


Invented clock; published alma- 






nac 


mulatto 


B. K. Bruce 


Reconstruction politician 


mulatto 


Alexander Crummell 


Preacher 


black 


Paul Cuffe 


In charge of the first load of 


mulatto 




Negroes sent to Liberia 


and Indian 


Frederick Douglass 


Runaway slave; anti-slavery agi- 


mulatto 




tator; politician 


and Indian 


James Durham 


Practiced medicine 


mulatto 


R. B. Elliott 


Reconstruction politician 


mulatto 


H. H. Garnett 


Preacher 


mulatto ■ 


R. T. Greener 


Reconstruction politician 


mulatto 


Lemuel Haynes 


Early Negro preacher 


mulatto 


John M. Langston 


Reconstruction politician 


mulatto 


D. A. Payne 


Bishop of the African Methodist 






Church 


mulatto 


J. W. C. Pennington 


Underground Railroad operator 


mulatto 


Phyllis Wheatley Peters 


Slave of John Wheatley; writer 






of verse 


black 


Robert Purvis 


Agitator; Underground Rail- 






road operator 


mulatto 


Charles L. Remond 


Agitator; Underground Rail- 






road operator 


mulatto 


J. B. Russwurm 


A governor of Liberia 


mulatto 


McCune Smith 


Physician and druggist 


mulatto 


Sojourner Truth 


Underground Railroad agent 


mulatto 


David Walker 


Agitator 


mulatto 


B. T. Washington 


Principal Tuskegee Institute 


mulatto 


Bert Williams 


Comedian 


mulatto 



Of the women named one was a mulatto and one was a 
black Negro. Of the twenty-one men, all were mulattoes. 

Sometimes mistakenly classed as a full-blood Negro. 



B3 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 197 

Two of these men, Garnett and Crummell, are sometimes 
classed as full-blooded Negroes; but this seems to be con- 
trary to the facts. Both men were the offspring of a mixed 
ancestry. The father of Crummell is said to have been an 
African chief. He married a free Negro woman of mixed 
blood. The son, however, is very dark in color and passes 
as a Negro of full-blood. He is accordingly listed with 
the full-bloods here. 

The Negro Star Publishing Company 53 advertises for 
sale the pictures of "all the great men of the race." 54 Their 
complete list comprises the pictures of twelve persons. The 
single woman whose picture is included in the collection was 
a mulatto. Of the eleven photographs remaining, one is 
that of a black man — Dunbar, — one is that of a man — 
Toussaint — concerning whose racial ancestry there may be 
a reasonable doubt, 55 and nine are photographs of men who 
are obviously and admittedly mulattoes. 56 

Kelly Miller in a chapter on "Eminent Negroes" 57 names 
sixteen individuals. Presumably these persons are, in the 

88 Greenwood, Mississippi. 

"See any issue of the Negro Star, for e.g., 1-14-1916. Letter from 

the General Manager under date of 1-25-1916. 
See p. 189 above. 

Crispus Attucks mulatto 

W. E. B. DuBois mulatto 

Frederick Douglass mulatto 

Alexandre Dumas mulatto 

Paul Laurence Dunbar black 

Richard T. Greener mulatto 

John Mercer Langston mulatto 

S. Coleridge Taylor mulatto 

Henry O. Tanner mulatto 

Francois Dominique Toussaint mulatto 

Sojourner Truth mulatto 

Booker T. Washington mulatto 
Race Adjustment, pp. 186-98. 



65 
Bfl 



198 



The Mulatto in the United States 



opinion of Mr. Miller, the best that the race in America has 
produced. "The names here presented," he says 58 "are at 
least respectable when measured by European standards. 
It is true that no one of them reaches the first, or even the 
second degree of luster in the galaxy of the world's great- 
ness." But they are all individuals in whose accomplish- 
ments the race may well take pride. Of the names pre- 
sented, one is that of a black woman, one that of a black 
man, and the remaining fourteen are names of men of mixed 
blood. The complete list follows: 



Ira Aldridge Actor 

Benjamin Banneker Inventor 

Charles W. Chestnutt Novelist 

Frederick Douglass Politician 

W. E. B. DuBois Writer 

Paul Laurence Dunbar Poet 

Lemuel Haynes Minister 

Elijah T. McCoy Inventor 

.Phyllis Wheatley Peters Poet 

W. S. Scarborough Teacher 

B. T. Tanner Bishop 

Henry O. Tanner Artist 

B. T. Washington Educator 

Daniel H. Williams Physician 

George H. Williams Writer 

Granville T. Woods Inventor 



mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto** 



Cromwell 60 presents a slightly variant list. His intention, 
as stated in the preface to his volume, is the publication of 
a book which will give "the salient points in the history of 
the American Negro, the story of their most eminent men 
and women . . ." The twenty persons selected include 



58 Race Adjustment, p. 188. 

59 See note 49, p. 195 above. 

60 



J. W. Cromwell, The Negro in American History. 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 



199 



three women and seventeen men. One of the women and 
three of the men were black. The sixteen remaining are 
names of mixed-blood individuals. His selection of the 
"most eminent men and women" of the race is as follows : 



Benjamin Banneker 
Edward W. Blyden 
Blanche Kelso Bruce 
George F. T. Cook 
John F. Cook, Jr. 
John F. Cook, Sr. 
Fanny M. Jackson Coppin 
Alexander Crummell 
Paul Cuffe 
Frederick Douglass 
Paul Laurence Dunbar 
Robert Brown Elliott 
Henry Highland Garnett 
John Mercer Langston 
Daniel Alexander Payne 
Phyllis Wheatley Peters 
Joseph Charles Price 
Henry Osawa Tanner 
Sojourner Truth 
Booker T. Washington 



mulatto 

mulatto 61 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 82 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 83 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

black M 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 



The California Eagle 65 advertises for sale the pictures 
of "the most Famous Men of the Colored Race, living and 
dead." Their picture features eight men, one of whom, — 
Dunbar — was black. The remaining seven are names of men 

01 Cromwell calls Blyden a full-blood Negro but this seems not to 
have been the case. He was a dark man of mixed ancestry. 

62 See p. 197 above. 

63 See note 52, p. 196 above. 

"Cromwell calls Price a full-blood Negro. He was probably not a 
man of unmixed Negro blood. He passed, however, as a full-blood 
Negro and the race took great pride in claiming him as such. A good 
photograph appears on p. 212 of Cromwell's book. 

66 A Negro newspaper of Los Angeles, California. 



200 



The Mulatto in the United States 



of mixed blood. 66 

The Colored American Review^ 1 offers a similar list 
which is, in the opinion of the editors, "the largest and 
finest collection of 'Famous Negroes,' both past and present, 
in America and abroad." 68 Thirty-two names appear in 
the printed list. Of these, five are names of women, and 
twenty-seven are names of men. Of -the five women, one is 
a pure-blooded Negress, and the remaining four are mu- 
lattoes. Of the twenty-seven names of men, three are of 
full-blooded Negroes and twenty-four are of mulattoes. 
The complete list and descriptions to which is here added 
an indication as to the purity of blood, is as follows : 



Hon. Harry Boss 

William Stanley Braithwaite 

Rev. W. W. Brown 

Harry T. Burleigh 

Anita Bush 

Bob Cole 

Hon. James Curtis 

Frederick Douglass 

Howard P. Drew 

W. E. B. DuBois 

Alexandre Dumas 

Paul Laurence Dunbar 

James Reese Europe 

Mathews Henson 

Ernest Hogan 

J. Rosamond Johnson 



Lawyer and Legislator mulatto 

Poet and Critic mulatto 

Eminent Baptist Divine mulatto 

Singer and Composer mulatto 

Actress mulatto 

Actor and Comedian mulatto 

Lawyer, Minister to Liberia mulatto 

Statesman mulatto 

Athlete, Runner mulatto 

Educator and Author mulatto 

Author mulatto 

Poet black 

Musician and Composer mulatto 

Explorer mulatto 

Comedian mulatto 

Composer mulatto 



60 



67 



Crispus Attucks mulatto 

Frederick Douglass mulatto 

W. E. B. DuBois mulatto 

Alexandre Dumas mulatto 

Paul Laurence Dunbar black 

H. O. Tanner mulatto 

Coleridge Taylor mulatto 

Booker T. Washington mulatto 

A semi-monthly magazine, published in New York City. 

See, for e.g., the issue of March, 1916, p. 187. 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 



201 



Ex-U. S. Consul and Author mulatto 

Singer mulatto " 

Ex-U. S. Ass't. Dist. Atty. mulatto 

The Original Uncle Tom mulatto 

Philosopher and Author black 70 

Educator black 

Famous Poet black 

Eminent Baptist Divine mulatto 

Artist mulatto 

Musician and Composer mulatto 

Champion Bicycle Rider mulatto T1 

Actress and Dancer mulatto 

Hair Culturist, Lecturer mulatto 

Actor and Composer mulatto 

Educator mulatto 

Comedian mulatto 



James W. Johnson 
Mine. Jones (Black Patti) 
Hon. Wm. H. Lewis 
Sam Lucas 
Kelly Miller 
Robert Russa Moton 
Phyllis Wheatley Peters 
Rev. Clayton Powell 
Henry Tanner 
Coleridge Taylor 
Major Taylor 
Aida Walker 
Mme. C. J. Walker 
George Walker 
Booker T. Washington 
Bert Williams 

All the present Bishops of the A. M. E. Z. Church 
All the present Bishops of the A. M. E. Church 

The Reverend J. A. Duncan, Pastor of the Ebenezer Af- 
rican Methodist Episcopalian Church of Stockton, Califor- 
nia, in an article in The California Eagle, a Negro news- 
paper, under the title "Our Famous Colored Women," names 
fourteen women. One name is that of a full-blooded Ne- 
gress. The thirteen names remaining are of women of mixed 
ancestry. The compilation is as follows : 



72 



Mrs. Ida Wells-Barnet 
Madam Flora B. Bergen 
Miss Hallie Quinn Brown 
Henrietta Vinton Davis 
Frances E. Harper 
Sissieretta Jones 
Edmonia Lewis 



mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 78 

mulatto 



* Classed by some correspondents as a full-blood Negress. 
70 See note 47, p. 194 above. 

"One correspondent called Taylor black. The consensus of opinion, 
however, was that he was a brown mulatto. 
™ See pages 276 ff. for an analysis of these groups. 
78 See note 70, p. 201. 






202 



The Mulatto in the 


United 


States 


Phyllis Wheatley Peters 




black 


Madam Selika 




mulatto 


Mrs. Amanda Smith 




mulatto 


Fannie Church Terrell 




mulatto 


Sojourner Truth 




mulatto 


Ada Overton Walker 




mulatto 


Mrs. Booker T. Washington 


mulatto 74 



At the beginning of the year 1916, Mr. DuBois issued a 
Who's Who in Colored America. 75 This publication con- 
tained the names of 139 individuals who, in the opinion of 
the editor, were the real intellectual and social aristocracy 
of the American Negro. The Who's Who contained the 
names of one hundred and thirty-one men and eight women. 
The list recorded the names of four men whom the Negroes 
themselves claim as "black" and for social purposes may 
be so considered, though two, and possibly three, of the 
four have been modified by an earlier admixture of white 
blood. Concerning three of the men, no information was 
obtained. They seem not to be well-known to the members 
of their race. 76 The remaining one hundred and twenty- 
four men are mulattoes. The eight women are all mulat- 
toes. Of the one hundred and thirty-two mulattoes two are 
dark, 77 while about one-half approximate the white race in 
features, head-form, and skin coloration. Taking the list 
as a whole, there is present somewhat over four times as 
much white as Negro blood. The complete list follows : 78 

74 The third wife of Booker T. Washington. 
"The Crisis Calendar for 1916. 

76 See note 82, p. 207 below. 

77 That is, they are less than one-half white. One is three-fourths 
black. The exact amount of Negro blood in the other is not known, 
but is approximately three-fourths. 

78 The poetic designations are the work of the compiler; the present 
writer adds the ethnic information. The initials, wrongly given in a 
few cases, have been corrected. 

It has been asserted that the list contains the names of fifteen full- 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 



203 



WHO'S WHO IN COLORED AMERICA 78 



Charles W. Anderson 

C. E. Bentley 

H. C. Bishop 

J. W. E. Bowen 

R. H. Boyd 

W. Stanley Braithwaite 

B. G. Brawley 
Miss H. Q. Brown 
Mrs. B. K. Bruce 
John E. Bruce 
Roscoe C. Bruce 
I. T. Bryant 

W. H. Bulkley 

Harry T. Burleigh 

Miss Nannie H. Burroughs 

William H. Bush 

J. S. Caldwell 

James L. Carr 

W. J. Carter 

C. W. Chestnutt 
George W. Cook 
Will Marion Cook 
L. J. Coppin 

W. H. Crogman 

Harry S. Cummings 

A. M. Curtis 

James L. Curtis 

J. C. Dancey 

Franklin Dennison 

R. N. Dett 

J. H. Douglass 

W. E. Burghardt DuBois 

James Reese Europe 



Worthy Public Official 


mulatto 


Pioneer in Dental Reform 


mulatto 


Religious Organizer 


mulatto 


Lecturer and Teacher 


mulatto 


Captain of Industry 


mulatto 


Poet and Interpreter of Lit- 




erature 


mulatto 


Author 


mulatto 


Elocutionist 


mulatto 


Astute and Gracious Leader 


mulatto 


Popular Writer 


mulatto 


Educational Leader 


mulatto 


Church Officer 


mulatto 


Efficient Educator 


mulatto 


Maker of Songs 


mulatto 


Organizer of Women 


mulatto 


Organist 


mulatto 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


Able Advocate 


mulatto 


Able Advocate 




Man of Letters 


mulatto 


Financier 


mulatto 


Musician 


mulatto 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


Teacher and Kindly Gentle- 




man 


mulatto 


Political Leader and Lawyer 


mulatto 


Surgeon and Physician 


mulatto 


Minister to Liberia 


mulatto 


Public Official 


mulatto 


Lawyer and Leader 


mulatto 


Composer 


mulatto 


Violinist 


mulatto 


Editor and Author 


mulatto 


Composer and Organizer of 




musicians 


mulatto 



blooded Negroes. Such assertion can be maintained only by adopting a 
very different definition of the term full-blooded from that used as the 
basis for this study. See Crisis, 12-1917, p. 77. 
79 The Crisis Calendar, 1916. 



204 



The Mulatto in the United States 



WHO'S WHO IN COLORED AMERICA— Continued 



9. D. Ferguson 


Venerable Bishop 


mulatto 


J. S. Flipper 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


T. Thomas Fortune 


Founder of Negro Journal- 


mulatto 




ism 


and Indian 


S. C. Fuller 


Pioneer in Psychiatry 


mulatto 


Henry W. Furniss 


Able Diplomatist 


mulatto 


W. H. Goler 


Educational Leader 


mulatto 


J. M. Gregory 


Veteran Educator 


mulatto 


R. T. Greener 


Pioneer Public Servant 


mulatto 


Archibald H. Grimk6 


Publicist and Writer 


mulatto 


F. J. Grimke 


Preacher of the Word of God 


mulatto 


G. C. Hall 


Deft Surgeon 


mulatto 


W. H. H. Hart 


Able Advocate and Defender 


mulatto 


J. R. Hawkins 


Church Leader 


mulatto 


Mason A. Hawkins 


Educational Leader 


mulatto 


W. Ashbie Hawkins 


Capable Lawyer 


mulatto 


Roland W. Hayes 


Sweet Singer 


mulatto 


L. M. Hershaw 


Civil Servant 


mulatto 


L. H. Holsey 


Church Leader 


mulatto 


J. W. Hood 


Venerable Prelate 


mulatto 


John Hope 


Teacher of Youth 


mulatto 


W. A. Hunton 


Apostle to Young Men 


mulatto 


John E. Hurst 


Church Leader 


mulatto 


E. W T . D. Isaacs 


Preacher and Publisher 


mulatto 


J. T. Jenifer 


Venerable Preacher 


mulatto 


Harvey Johnson 


Venerable Preacher 


mulatto 


H. L. Johnson 


Public Official 


mulatto 


J. A. Johnson 


Apostle to Africa 


mulatto 


James W. Johnson 


Writer and Poet 


mulatto 


Rosamond Johnson 


Composer and Orchestra 






Leader 


mulatto 


R. E. Jones 


Able Editor 


mulatto 


L. G. Jordan 


Missionary 


mulatto 


Ernest E. Just 


Student of Living Things 


mulatto 


H. T. Kealing 


Teacher and Educator 


mulatto 


Lucy Laney 


Protector of Women and 






Girls 


mulatto 


R. Augustus Lawson 


Teacher of Music 


mulatto 


B. F. Lee 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


James Lewis 


Public Official 


mulatto 


W. H. Lewis 


Lawyer and Public Official 


mulatto 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 
WHO'S WHO IN COLORED AMERICA— Continued 



205 



W. Logan 


Financial Officer 


mulatto 


John R. Lynch 


Pioneer in Political Service 


mulatto 
and Indian 


E. McCoy 


Skilled Inventor 


mulatto 


John R. Marshall 


Military Pioneer 


mulatto 


Cassius Mason 


Preacher of Righteousness 




James C. Matthews 


Political Leader and Jurist 


mulatto 


K. Miller 


Author and Critic 


black 


John Mitchell 


Editor and Business Man 


mulatto 


W. E. Mollison 


Banker and Business Man 


mulatto 


I. T. Montgomery 


Founder of a Town 


mulatto 


G. W. Moore 


Religious Leader 


mulatto 


Lewis B. Moore 


Teacher of Teachers 


mulatto 


J. E. Mooreland 


Builder of Men's Clubs 


mulatto 


E. C. Morris 


Baptist Leader 


mulatto 


E. H. Morris 


Chosen Leader 


mulatto 


W. R. Morris 


Able Advocate 


mulatto 


N. F. Mossell 


Hospital Founder 


mulatto 


Lucy Moton 


Teacher of Courtesy 


mulatto 


Robert R. Moten 


Organizer 


black 


Daniel Murray 


Bookman 


mulatto 


J. C. Napier 


Public Official 


mulatto 


Father Oncles 


Priest of the Church 


mulatto 


H. B. Parks 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


I. Garland Penn 


Church Official 


mulatto 


C. H. Phillips 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


Henry L. Phillips 


Practical Apostle 


mulatto 


P. B. S. Pinchback 


Pioneer of Reconstruction 


mulatto 


R. C. Ransom 


Orator and Editor 


mulatto 


J. B. Reeve 


Honored Preacher 


mulatto 


H. A. Rucker 


Efficient Public Official 


mulatto 


Mrs. J. St. P. Ruffin 


Pioneer Club Woman 


mulatto 


W. S. Scarborough 


Scholar in Letters 


mulatto 


E. J. Scott 


Able Secretary 


mulatto 


I. B. Scott 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


William E. Scott 


Artist in Colors 


mulatto 


C. T. Shaffer 


Servant of the Church 


mulatto 


R. Smalls 


Hero and Public Servant 


mulatto 


B. S. Smith 


Lawyer and Public Officer 


mulatto 


C. S. Smith 


Bishop of the Church 


mulatto 


H. C. Smith 


Veteran Editor 


mulatto 



206 



The Mulatto in the United States 



WHO'S WHO IN COLORED AMERICA— Continued 



T. G. Steward 


Chaplain and Writer 


mulatto 


B. T. Tanner 


Venerable Prelate 


mulatto 


H. O. Tanner 


Artist in Colors 


mulatto 


Mrs. Mary Church Terrell 


Lecturer and Leader of 




/ 


Women 


mulatto 


R. H. Terrell 


Judicial Officer 


mulatto 


W. Monroe Trotter 


Intrepid Agitator 


mulatto 


W. V. Tunnell 


Preacher and Teacher 


mulatto 


C. H. Turner 


Student of Living Things 


mulatto 


E. Tyree 


Bishop of the Church 


black 


G. W. Vass 


Religious Leader 


mulatto 


W. T. Vernon 


Public Official 


black 


Maggie B. Walker 


Able Business Woman 


mulatto 


A. Walters 


Bishop and Leader 


mulatto 


Wm. A. Warfield 


Surgeon and Administrator 


mulatto 


Marcus F. Wheatland 


Noted Physician 


mulatto 


Clarence C. White 


Musician 


mulatto 


Fred White 


Organist 


mulatto 


G. H. White 


Congressman and Banker 


mulatto 
and Indian 


Bert Williams 


Apostle Of Laughter 


mulatto 


D. H. Williams 


Master of Surgery 


mulatto 


E. C. Williams 


Teacher of Youth 


mulatto 


W. T. B. Williams 


Social Student 


mulatto 


Carter G. Woodson 


Student of History 


mulatto 


J. W. Woodson 


Able Lawj r er 




Monroe N. Work 


Social Statistician 


mulatto 


R. R. Wright 


Noted Educator 


mulatto 


R. R. Wright, Jr. 


Editor and Student 


mulatto 


Charles Young 


Military Expert and Brave 
Soldier 


mulatto 



Such a list, as the compiler himself says, 80 is necessarily 
largely a matter of personal opinion. In order to eliminate 
in so far as possible this personal equation, letters were 
sent to each of the persons in the foregoing list whose ad- 
dress it was possible to secure, asking each to name the 
tw T enty-five living Negroes who, in the opinion of the per- 

80 Letter from Mr. DuBois under date of 2-10-1916. 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 207 

son addressed, were the foremost men of the race. The men 
addressed proved about thirty per cent courteous. Thirty- 
six lists were received, including in all two hundred and fifty 
separate names. 81 One hundred and forty-four names ap- 
peared but a single time in the whole series of lists sub- 
mitted 82 and, inasmuch as they thus represent the opinion 
of a single individual, 83 they are dropped from further con- 
sideration here. 84 One hundred and six names remained. 
Of these, eight are dark men of Negro features, though 
probably not in every case full-blooded Negroes. Ninety- 
eight are admittedly mulattoes. The list of names, the 
number of times the individual was mentioned in the letters 
received, the vocation and ethnic composition follows: 

The Foremost American Negroes 

in the opinion of 

Prominent Men of the Race 

81 R. R. Moton Principal Tuskegee Institute black 

30 W. E. B. DuBois Editor and writer mulatto 

26 Kelly Miller Teacher and writer black 

23 William Henry Lewis Lawyer and politician mulatto 

23 Daniel H. Williams Physician and surgeon mulatto 

21 Emmett J. Scott Secretary Tuskegee Institute mulatto 

81 A number of lists contained twenty- four names : a dead-lock, ap- 
parently, between accuracy and modesty. A few lists contained names 
in excess of twenty-five. 

83 This is not to be taken as evidence that each man included his own 
name in the list submitted and got no other mention. In only six of 
the thirty-six lists submitted did the compiler include himself and in each 
such case his name appeared in other lists. 

83 One man submitted the Bishops and General Officers of his church 
as including all the foremost American Negroes. Another included 
Sam Langford, the prize fighter, among the twenty-five greatest men 
of the race. A number of other peculiarities of personal preference 
appeared. 

84 Of these 144 names 7 were of black men, 95 of mulattoes and 42 
were of individuals whose racial ancestry was not determined. 



208 



The Mulatto in the United States 



The Foremost American Negroes — Continued 



18 


R. H. Terrell 


Justice Municipal Court, D. C. 


mulatto 


17 


J. C. Napier 


Former Registrar U. S. Treas. 


mulatto 


17 


Alexander Walters 


Bishop A. M. E. Zion Church 


mulatto 


16 


Richard H. Boyd 


Preacher and banker 


mulatto 


15 


Charles W. Anderson 


Former United States Inter- 








nal Revenue Collector 


mulatto 


15 


William S. Braithwaite 


Poet 


mulatto 


15 


W. S. Scarborough 


President Wilberforce Univ. 


mulatto 


13 


John Mitchell, Jr. 


Editor 


mulatto 


13 


William Pickens 


Dean, Morgan College 


Negro and 
Indian and 
possibly 
white 


13 


Henry O. Tanner 


Painter 


mulatto 


13 


Charles E. Young 


Lieut. 9th U. S. Cavalry 


mulatto 


12 


Charles W. Chestnutt 


Novelist 


mulatto 


12 


R. R. Wright, Jr. 


Editor and preacher 


mulatto 


11 


J. W. E. Bowen 


Teacher 


mulatto 


11 


R. T. Greener 


Teacher and politician 


mulatto 


11 


R. E. Jones 


Editor 


mulatto 


11 


John R. Lynch 


Politician and writer 


mulatto 
and Indian 


11 


E. C. Morris 


Preacher 


mulatto 


10 


Benjamin F. Lee 


Bishop A. M. E. Church 


mulatto 


9 


Harry T. Burleigh 


Singer 


mulatto 


9 


Archibald H. Grimke" 


Politician 


mulatto 


9 


J. E. Moorland 


International Secretary 








Y. M. C. A. 


mulatto 


9 


Edward H. Morris 


Lawyer 


mulatto 


8 


John Hope 


President Morehouse College 


mulatto 


8 


James W. Johnson 


Writer 


mulatto 


8 


Isaiah T. Montgomery 


Founder of Negro town 


mulatto 


8 


William H. Trotter 


Editor and agitator 


mulatto 


7 


Charles Banks 


Cashier Negro bank 


black 


7 


Will Marion Cook 


Musician 


mulatto 
and Indian 


7 


Solomon C. Fuller 


Physician 


mulatto 


7 


T. Thomas Fortune 


Editor 


mulatto 
and Indian 


7 


Francis J. Grimke* 


Preacher 


mulatto 


7 


George C. Hall 


Physician 


mulatto 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 



209 



The Foremost American Negroes — Continued 



7 


I. Garland Penn 


Preacher 


mulatto 


7 


W. T. Vernon 


Bishop A. M. E. Church 


black 


7 


C. T. Williams 


Preacher 


mulatto 


7 


Bert Williams 


Comedian 


mulatto 


6 


E. E. Just 


Teacher 


mulatto 


6 


C. V. Roman 


Physician 


mulatto 


6 


T. G. Steward 


Teacher 


mulatto 


5 


Roscoe C. Bruce 


Superintendent Negro schools 








of Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


5 


C. S. Smith 


Bishop A. M. E. Church 


mulatto 


4 


Ira T. Bryant 


Secretary A. M. E. S. S. 








Union 


mulatto 


4 


John E. Bush 


Lodge official 


mulatto 


4 


George W. Clinton 


Bishop A. M. E. Zion Church 


black 


4 


William Henry Crogman 


Teacher 


mulatto 


4 


J. C. Dancy 


Former United States Re- 








corder of Deeds 


mulatto 


4 


F. A. Dennison 


Lawyer 


mulatto 


4 


John R. Hawkins 


Teacher 


mulatto 
and Indian 


4 


J. W. Hood 


Bishop A. M. E. Zion Church 


mulatto 


4 


George E. Haynes 


Teacher 


mulatto 


4 


John Hurst 


Bishop A. M. E. Church 


mulatto 


4 


H. T. Kealing 


President Western Reserve 








University 


mulatto 


4 


P. B. S. Pinchback 


Reconstruction politician 


mulatto 


4 


R. L. Smith 


Business man 


mulatto 


4 


C. G. Woodson 


Teacher 


mulatto 


3 


C. E. Bentley 


Dentist 


mulatto 


3 


R. E. Church, Jr. 


Memphis, Tenn. 


mulatto 


3 


Levi J. Coppin 


Preacher 


mulatto 


3 


B. J. Davis 


Editor 


mulatto 


3 


B. 0. Davis 


Lieut. 10th U. S. Cavalry 


mulatto 


3 


J. Rosamond Johnson 


Pianist 


mulatto 


3 


L. G. Jordan 


Preacher 


mulatto 


3 


W. E. King 


Editor 


mulatto 


3 


Fred R. Moore 


Editor 


mulatto 


3 


N. F. Mossell 


Physician 


mulatto 


3 


H. H. Proctor 


Preacher 


mulatto 


3 


R. C. Ransom 


Editor 


mulatto 


3 


E. P. Roberts 


Physician 


mulatto 



210 



The Mulatto in the United States 



The Foremost American Negroes — Continued 



3 I. B. Scott 

3 Charles Henry Turner 

3 Ralph W. Tyler 

2 R. A. Carter 

2 George W. Carver 

2 Nick Chiles 

2 George W. Cook 

2 S. E. Courtney 

2 M. W. Dogan 

2 J. E. Ford 

2 S. W. Green 

2 Sutton E. Griggs 

2 W. J. Hale 

2 Ferdinand Havis 

2 A. F. Herndon 

2 W. A. Hunton 

2 John T. Jenifer 

2 C. F. Johnson 

2 H. T. Johnson 

2 J. Albert Johnson 

2 Scipio H. Jones 

2 Warren Logan 
2 Christopher Perry 
2 Benjamin T. Tanner 
Evans Tyree 
J. Milton Waldron 
W. A. Warfield 
George H. White 
2 W. T. B. Williams 
2 Monroe N. Work 
Nathan B. Young 



2 



Preacher mulatto 

Teacher mulatto 

Former Auditor U. S. Navy mulatto 

Bishop C. M. E. Church mulatto 

Teacher black 

Editor mulatto 

Teacher mulatto 

Physician mulatto 

President Wiley University mulatto 

Preacher mulatto 

Lodge official mulatto 

Preacher mulatto 
President of Industrial 

School mulatto 
Grocer mulatto 
Barber and Insurance Agent mulatto 
Intern. Sec'y Y. M. C. A. mulatto 
Preacher mulatto 
Physician mulatto 
Editor black 
Bishop A. M. E. Church mulatto 
President Ark. Negro Busi- 
ness League mulatto 
Treasurer, Tuskegee Institute mulatto 
Newspaper writer mulatto 
Bishop A. M. E. Church mulatto 
Bishop A. M. E. Church black 
Preacher mulatto 
Physician mulatto 
Reconstruction politician mulatto 
Teacher mulatto 
Editor, Negro Year Book mulatto 
President of Industrial 

School mulatto 



It will have been observed that in the foregoing lists 
there has been a frequent repetition of certain names. The 
names of Douglass, Washington and H. O. Tanner, for ex- 
ample, each appears eight times, that of Dunbar seven times, 
that of Phyllis Wheatley Peters six times and a number of 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 211 

Dther names appear two or more times each. Making cor- 
rection for these duplications and omitting the list com- 
piled by Gregoire as having nothing more than an antiqua- 
rian interest or value there remain the names of two hun- 
dred and forty-six individuals. Of this total, two hundred 
and twenty-two are the names of men and twenty-four the 
names of women. Of the twenty-four women two were black 
and twenty-two mulattoes. Of the two hundred and twenty- 
two men, the ancestry of three was not determined. Of the 
two hundred and nineteen remaining names fourteen are of 
men who are full-blooded or nearly full-blooded Negroes. 
Two hundred and five are names of mulattoes. Thus of the 
total of two hundred and forty-six persons considered, two 
hundred and twenty-seven are mulattoes, sixteen are black 
and three are unknown. 

These data thrown into tabular form follow (p. 212) : 
Of the two hundred and forty-six persons so far consid- 
ered, the ratio of mulattoes to Negroes of pure blood is 
slightly more than fourteen to one. Attention has been 
called to the fact that in a few cases there is a disagreement 
concerning the mixture of blood. In such cases, the indi- 
vidual is classed as black or mulatto according as the evi- 
lence seems to favor the one or the other. Where the 
weight of the evidence seems equal, the individual is placed 
n the full-blooded group. The number of questionable 
cases, however, is so small that error in their classification 
vould not materially alter the general figures. If all the 
cases concerning which there is a reasonable doubt were to 
>e classed as full-blooded Negroes, the ratio of mulattoes 
;o full-bloods would still be approximately eleven to one. 
[f all such questionable cases were thrown into the mulatto 
rroup, the ratio would be somewhat more seriously affected ; 
t would then stand at twenty, or perhaps twenty-five, to 



212 



The Mulatto in the United States 



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The Leading Men of the Negro Race 813 

one. 

In the opinion of the Negroes themselves, these lists would 
seem to include all members of the race — and many others — 
who have made any success in life which would entitle them, 
to mention outside purely racial or local circles. It in- 
cludes some men of first-rate intellectual ability and a few 
men of exceptional talent ; perhaps, a few men of eminence. 
But in the first stages, at least, of the evolution of a primi- 
tive folk, great men, as measured by the standards of a 
more advanced group, are of less importance and of less 
worth than is that larger and less conspicuous group of men 
and women who rise but slightly above the mass of their 
fellows. The exotic is interesting and important as an in- 
dication of the latent capacity and possibility of the group ; 
he is not the power that moves and guides the group in its 
slow and tedious evolution. It is within the group of men, 
superior to the great mass yet not so far in advance of 
them as to form a divergent and hence a racially useless 
group, that the great majority of the individuals mentioned 
fall. The number of men, however, considering the method 
of their selection, is perhaps too small to justify any gen- 
eral conclusion. By increasing the number of cases, though 
this necessarily will involve men of a lesser degree of talent 
and of note, and will thereby tend to raise the proportion 
of blacks to mulattoes, 85 any errors due to sampling will 
be overcome. The tentative ratio of fourteen to one will 
therefore be allowed to stand until the examination of larger 
groups leads to its modification or verification. 86 



86 



The ratio of blacks to mulattoes in the general population is ap- 
proximately five to one. 

88 The method of investigation pursued in this and the three follow- 
ing chapters was first to assemble as inclusive and exhaustive a list 
as possible of men reputed to be of Negro blood who had in some way 
distinguished themselves above their fellows. The fact that they were 



214> The Mulatto in the United States 

mentioned in compilations of prominent Negro men and women, in books 
or articles by or about Negroes, in lists specially prepared for this study 
by Negroes of wide acquaintance among their race, in lists of officials 
or leaders in Negro organizations, in lists of men or women successful 
in business, professional or artistic endeavor, or individuals mentioned 
in the literature as men of importance, was taken as evidence of im- 
portance in the group. In this way it is believed there has been brought 
together a list of men and women which includes every person of any 
real importance whom the race has so far produced, and most, at least, 
of those who have in any way, even locally and in very minor degree, 
been important men among their fellows. 

The problem was then to determine which of these persons were 
pure-blood Negroes and which were of mixed ancestry. This matter 
of color is perhaps the most tender point in the whole race question. 
Even in the books and articles that purport to be of a biographical 
nature the subject is seldom mentioned. Unless the man mentioned 
is strikingly black or is a blood relation of some prominent white man 
any reference to ancestry seldom appears. Another group of Negro 
writers — and the practice is followed by some white "students" of race 
matters — refers to every individual with a brown skin as a man of un- 
mixed Negro blood. A certain group among the mulattoes themselves 
tends to claim as mixed-bloods all those individuals of enviable dis- 
tinction and refers to others and especially to those of unsavory repu- 
tation as black Negroes. Unreliable as it generally is, all this refer- 
ence to ancestry was collected, compared and verified. A second source 
of information was the printed photographs with which almost every 
book by a Negro writer is profusely embellished. Where the photo- 
graphs seemed to be genuine and showed beyond question a man of 
mixed blood or where the photograph showed a man who was appar- 
ently a white man yet called Negro in the legend or the text the man 
was tentatively classed as a mulatto. Further information was secured 
either directly or by letter from both black and white men acquainted 
with the men in question. In one or more of these ways the original 
list was separated into three: those who are pure-blood Negroes or ac- 
cepted as such, those who are notoriously and admittedly mulattoes, 
and those individuals whose racial ancestry was unknown or disputed. 
This third list was sub-divided according to sections of the country and 
according to occupations and professions. These lists were then sub- 
mitted to reliable men in the section of the country represented who 
were engaged in the various occupations and professions. After fur- 
ther revision the remaining list of names was again submitted to Negro 
men of wide acquaintance among the race. The response to this final 



The Leading Men of the Negro Race 215 

appeal gave little additional information and the letters accompanying 
the return of the manuscript were in almost every case characterized 
by such comments as the following quoted verbatim from this series of 
letters : 

". . . In most cases I do not consider these men of any real note. 
You have included many Negroes who have not risen above medi- 
ocrity. . . ." 

". . . In looking over your list I find so many of mediocre fame that, 
I am at a loss to divine to what use you intend to put the informa- 
tion. . . ." 

"... I am interested in the list of names which you present because 
among them are hardly any of the best known colored people in the 
United States or in American history. Perhaps you did not mean to 
use the best known Negroes as the basis of your inquiry." 

". . . Your list is altogether beyond my knowledge. Of most of these 
people I have never heard. I fear that the few about whom I can 
be certain will be of very little service to you." 

When this stage of the inquiry was reached the couple of hundred 
names remaining out of the original list of several thousand were, with 
half a dozen exceptions, dropped from further consideration. They 
were, in the opinion of the best informed men of the race, names of 
persons of absolutely no consequence one way or the other. In a few 
cases the names of these men were retained in order to give in complete 
form an original compilation. 

The chapters in their final form were submitted in whole or in part 
to men of widest information on matters of racial interest for final 
verification. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY OF THE NEGRO 

THREE attempts have been made by Negroes to write 
histories of the race. x These works differ very widely 
in method and to some extent deal with different periods. 
Two volumes b}^ Williams cover the American period from 
1619 to 1880. Brawley treats of the same period and 
brings the account down to the present. The volume of 
DuBois is for the most part an attempt to build a tradi- 
tion and to supply "history" rather than an attempt to 
record and interpret facts. One chapter, however, deals 
with the Negro in America in a semi-historical way. 

In Williams's narrative, mention is made of some one 
hundred and forty-five different men and women as being 
of Negro blood. This number includes several white per- 
sons erroneously classed as Negroes, a list of individuals who 
were members of the first conference of the African Meth- 
odist Episcopal church, slaves, Negro sailors, free Negroes, 
fugitive slaves, Negro criminals, and various other charac- 
ters with no better claim to distinction. To consider such 
persons here, not only would cumber the ground with useless 
timber, but would have a tendency to obscure the essential 
facts. Where, therefore, it did not appear from the narra- 
tive or from other sources that these men displayed some 
degree of native ability, made some contribution to the life 

1 G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America; W. E. B. 
DuBois, The Neyro; and G. B. Brawley, A Short History of the Amer- 
ican Negro. 

216 



The History and Biography of the Negro £17 



of the period in which they lived, or were persons of note 
in their own day and circle, they have been eliminated from 
consideration. 2 After eliminating from the total those per- 
sons who have little or no better claim to eminence than 
would an equal number of individuals taken at hazard from 
the general Negro population, there still remained the names 
of seventy persons. Of this number, however, the names 
of sixteen have appeared one or more times in the lists 
given in the preceding chapter, 3 and so are omitted here. 
The names remaining are as follows: 



Granville S. Abbott 
John Adams 
James Enoch Ambush 
Duke William Anderson 
E. D. Basset 

Charlotte Beams 
Maria Becraft 
Henry Boyd 
John M. Brown 
R. H. Cain 
Lott Carey 
Mary A. S. Carey 
William H. Carney 
Eliza Ann Cook 
Alexander Cornish 
Louisa Parke Costin 
William Costin 



Preacher. Writer of verse 
First Negro teacher in D. C. 
Founded Wesleyan Seminary 
Baptist minister 
Former minister to Haiti 

Early teacher of Negroes 
Early teacher of Negroes 
Inventor and manufacturer 
Bishop A. M. E. Church 
Bishop A. M. E. Church 
Baptist preacher 
Teacher and speaker 
Soldier in Civil War 
Started school for Negroes 
Started school for Negroes 
Started school for Negroes 
Bank messenger 



mulatto 

mulatto 

black 4 

mulatto 

mulatto 

and Indian 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 6 

black 8 

mulatto 

mulatto 7 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

and Indian 



a See, also, note 86, p. 213 above. 

8 Of the sixteen names dropped for this reason one is that of a 
black man, one that of a black woman and fourteen are those of 
mulatto men. 

4 One authority called Ambush a mixed-blood. 

6 Several authorities called Cain a mulatto. 
"Two authorities called Carey a mulatto. 

7 One authority called Carney a full-black. This was obviously an 
error. 



218 



The Mulatto in the United States 



John Cuffe 

Ann Dandridge 
John V. DeGrasse 
Louise DeMortie 
William F. Dickerson 
John H. Fleet 
Miss Charlotte Forten 
Nicholas Franklin 
Gabriel 

John P. Green 
Leonard Grimes 
Mrs. Anna M. Hall 
Alexander Hayes 
Bishop Loguen 
Benjamin M. McCoy 
Charles H. Middleton 
Charles L. Mitchell 
Lindsay Muse 
Charles Pierce 
James Poindexter 
William Paul Quinn 
Thomas Wright Roberts 
James Shorter 
Benjamin Snow 
Austin Stewart 
Marshall W. Taylor 

Alex S. Thomas 
H. M. Turner 
Nat Turner 
Denmark Vesey 
S. R. Ward 
T. M. D. Ward 
A. W. Wayman 
Nelson Wells 
Mary Wormley 
William Wormley 
Richard Wright 



Free Negro in Mass. mulatto 

and India: 

Mother of W. Costin mulatto 

Physician mulatto 

Started an asylum for Negroes mulatto 

Bishop A. M. E. Church mulatto 8 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 
Mrs. F. H. Grimke mulatto 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 

Insurrectionist mulatto 

Mass. Legislature 1881 mulatto 

Baptist minister mulatto 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 

Started school for Negroes black 

Writer and preacher mulatto 

Preacher mulatto 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 

Member Legislature of Mass. mulatto 

Started a Sunday School, D. C. mulatto 

Preacher A. M. E. Church mulatto 

Baptist preacher mulatto 

Bishop A. M. E. Church mulatto 9 

Bishop A. M. E. Church mulatto 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 

Cause of the "Snow Riot" 1835 mulatto 

Author mulatto 

Preacher mulatto- 
Indian 

Photographer mulatto 

Bishop A. M. E. Church mulatto 

Insurrectionist mulatto 

Insurrectionist mulatto 

Author mulatto 

Bishop A. M. E. Church mulatto 10 

'Bishop A. M. E. Church black 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 

Started school for Negroes mulatto 

First A. M. E. Conference mulatto 



a r 



10 



One correspondent called Dickerson pure-black. 
Two correspondents called Quinn a full-blood Negro. 
Ward is quite dark. He was called full-blood by two authorities. 



The History and Biography of the Negro 219 

The fifty-four new names presented in this list are in ten 
cases names of women — all mulattoes — and in forty-four 
cases, names of men. Of the men, five are given as full- 
blooded Negroes. Of the total fifty-four persons, forty- 
line are names of mixed-bloods, and five are names of black 
Negroes. 

In the volume by Mr. DuBois, the names of sixteen Amer- 
ican Negroes are mentioned. Two of these are names of 
f^omen, and fourteen are names of men. Both the women 
ind three of the men seem to have been full-blooded Negroes. 
Eleven of the men are known to have been of mixed blood. 
Of the total of sixteen, however, thirteen have been men- 
tioned in one or more of the previous lists and are omitted 
here. The three names remaining are, in each case, names 
of mulattoes. They are: 

Fames Barbadoes Anti-slavery agitator mulatto 

J. C. Gibbs Reconstruction Politician mulatto 

William Lambert Underground Railroad agent mulatto 

Brawley mentions one hundred and twenty-four individuals 
in all of Negro descent. Twenty-four of these have been 
omitted from consideration as being names of men of very 
slight importance even in their own time and circle. 11 The 
names of sixty of these have appeared in preceding lists 
and so are omitted here. 12 Of the remaining forty names, 
thirty-one are of men and nine are of women. Of the nine 
names of women all are mulattoes. Of the men, twenty-six 
are names of mulattoes and five are of black men. Of the 
total list of names, thirty-five are of mulattoes and five are 
of black Negroes. The forty not previously mentioned are 

11 One— Madison Washington— seems to have been merely a literary 
character. See story by Frederick Douglass. 

"Of the 60 names omitted for this reason, 6 are of black men, 3 of 
black women, 47 are mulatto men and 4 are mulatto women. 



220 



The Mulatto in the United States 



as follows : 

C. C. Antoine 
E. M. Bannister 
Thomas Bethune 
Nellie Brown 
Richard L. Brown 
Eugene Burkins 
Anthony Burns 
Cato 

Melville Charlton 
James D. Corrothers 
A. K. Davis 
Robert C. DeLarge 
Oscar J. Dunn 
Silas X. Floyd 
Thomas Garrett 
Monday Gell 
Richard H. Gleaves 
Elizabeth T. Greenfield 
Mrs. E. A. Hackley 
Hazel Harrison 
The Hyer Sisters 
Elijah Johnson 
Absolom Jones 
Thorny Lafon 
Bertina Lee 
John McKee 
J. E. Matzeliger 
Alice Ruth Moore 
John Peters 
W. B. Purvis 
Joseph H. Rainey 
A. J. Ransier 
James T. Rapier 
Hiram R. Revels 16 

William A. Sinclair 



Reconstruction politician 

Painter 

Musical prodigy 

Singer 

Painter 

Invented rapid-fire gun 

Well-known fugitive slave 

Insurrectionist 

Organist 

Newspaper writer 

Reconstruction politician 

Reconstruction politician 

Reconstruction politician 

Writer of folklore 

Underground Railroad worker 

Insurrectionist 

Reconstruction politician 

Singer 

Singer 

Pianist 

Singers 

Colonist to Liberia 

First Negro Episcopal Rector 

Philanthropist 

Sculptor 

Philanthropist 

Inventor 

Wife of Dunbar 

Married Phyllis Wheatley 

Inventor 

Reconstruction politician 

Reconstruction politician 

Reconstruction politician 

United States Senator 

Writer 



mulatto 
mulatto 
black 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 18 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
black 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulattoes 
mulatto 
black » 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
black 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto- 
Indian 
black 



14 



13 Two correspondents called Cato black. 

14 One authority called Gleaves black. 
"Three correspondents considered Jones a mulatto. 

Revels came from the Croatan Indian group. See pp. 81, 85 above. 



ia 



The History and Biography of the Negro 281 



\. 0. Stafford 


Principal of Negro Schoo 


1 mulatto 


Roy W. Tibbs 


Pianist 


mulatto 


Vteta Vaux Warrick 


Mrs. Fuller, Sculptor 


mulatto " 


Felix Wier 


Violinist 


mulatto 



Among the books dealing with the Negro in America are 
a number of volumes of a semi-biographical and personal 
sort written by Negroes. In and of themselves these vol- 
umes are, in general, of very slight value or importance. 
But they do each serve the purpose of bringing together a 
grroup of men who, in the opinion of the compiler, are among 
the important men of the race. Here, as elsewhere in the 
writing of Negroes, there is seldom a reference made to the 
ethnic composition of the biographer's subject. But as the 
volumes of the sort generally contain numerous photo- 
graphic reproductions, it is often possible to form from them 
a fairly accurate judgment concerning the racial ancestry 
of the men discussed. A summary of some of these books 
will throw additional light upon the present problem. 

The volume by Gibson and Crogman 18 contains bio- 
graphical sketches of a large number of men and women 
of Negro blood. In nearly one hundred cases, the sketches 
are accompanied by photographs of the men and women. 19 

17 See W. F. O'Donnell, "Meta Vaux Warrick. Sculptor of Horrors." 
The World To-day, Vol. 13, pp. 1139-45. Miss Warrick claims to be 
descended from an African princess. 

18 J. W. Gibson and W. H. Crogman, The Colored American. The 
fact that a book is referred to is not to be taken as an endorsement 
of the work. The volume of Gibson and Crogman, for example, is 
absolutely devoid of any merit. 

19 It is not to be assumed here or elsewhere that a judgment as to 
a man's ethnic ancestry rests solely upon the interpretation of a printed 
photograph. Unless the evidence of racial intermixture is so strikingly 
obvious as to preclude the possibility of error other sources of infor- 
mation have been resorted to. Where positive evidence could not be 
obtained or where the evidence obtained was conflicting the man has 



222 The Mulatto in the United States 

Sixty-four of the photographs are of men, and thirty-three 
are of women. Of the men, one photograph is that of a 
black man and four others are of men who are black, though 
possibly not pure-blooded Negroes. The remaining fifty- 
nine are photographs of mulattoes. Of the women, two pho- 
tographs are of dark individuals who for present purposes 
are classed as black though purity of blood is not a cer- 
tainty in either case. Thirty-two of the men and sixteen 
of the women have been previously mentioned, so are dropped 
from the list. 20 Forty-nine names remain. Of these, thirty- 
two are of men, three of which are of black men and twenty- 
nine of mulattoes. Of the seventeen names of women, two 
are of Negroes and fifteen are of mulattoes. The list of 
names, omitting those which have appeared previously, is as 
follows : 

J. W. Adams mulatto 

Rev. W. G. Alexander mulatto 

Dr. J. B. Banks mulatto 

Miss Ella D. Barrier mulatto 

Henry Black mulatto 

Rev. E. R. Carter mulatto 

A. C. Cornell mulatto 

Mrs. W. M. Coshburn mulatto 

Walter M. Coshburn mulatto 

Prof. W. H. Council black 

William Custalo mulatto 

J. H. Darden mulatto 

Mrs. L. A. Davis mulatto 

Louis Earnest black 

Miss Hattie Gibbs mulatto 

Nora A. Gordon mulatto 

been classed as a full-blood Negro or as a mulatto depending upon 
whether the bulk of the evidence favored the presumption of pure oi| 
mixed blood. Special attention is called to such cases. 

20 Two of the names dropped for this reason are of black Negroes ; 
the other names, twenty-eight of men and fourteen of women, are those 
of persons of mixed blood. 



The History and Biography of the Negro 



£23 



E. Hansberry 
Prof. W. E. Holmes 
Mrs. Emma T. Hort 
Hon. S. J. Jenkins 
James Kelly- 
Horace King 
W. W. King 
M. N. King 
J. T. King 
G. H. King 
M. J. Lehman 
Rev. W. W. Lucas 
Rev. Leigh B. Maxwell 
Prof. J. L. Murray 
Rev. Cyrus Myers 
Rev. M. W. D. Norman 
Miss Ida Piatt 
Mrs. Mary Rice Phelps 
B. F. Powell 
Mrs. M. A. Robinson 
Rev. D. J. Sanders 
Dr. B. E. Scruggs 
Huston Singleton 
Albretta Moore Smith 
Charity Still 
D. A. Straker 
Lillian J. B. Thomas 
Mrs. Margaret Washington 
Rev. W. B. West 
Miss Emma Rose Williams 
Mrs. D. H. Williams 
Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams 
Mrs. Sylvanie F. Williams 



mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 



M. W. Gibbs 21 in the preface to his volume 22 says : 

I have aimed to give an added interest to the narra- 
tive by embellishing its pages with portraits of men 
who have gained distinction in various fields, . . . 

"Gibbs was a mulatto. 
32 Shadow and Light. 



224 The Mulatto in the United States 

He gives in all the photographs of thirty men. Of thes< 
one is that of a full-blooded Negro. 23 Three are men con 
cerning whose racial ancestry there may be a reasonabl 
doubt. 24 The remaining twenty-six are beyond all questio: 
men with a considerable proportion of white intermixtur 
and frequently with only a trace of Negro blood. Ninetee: 
of the names have appeared in preceding groups. 25 Th 
remaining eleven are as follows : 

Joseph A. Booker black 

William Calvin Chase mulatto 

W. B. Derrick black 

A. Bishop Grant mulatto 

John Green mulatto 

William H. Hunt mulatto 

I. G. Ish mulatto 

Chester W. Keatts mulatto 

James B. Parker mulatto 

William A. Pledger mulatto 

J. P. Robinson black 

Dr. D. W. Culp, a mulatto physician of Palatka, Florids 
compiled and published in 1902 a volume of essays 26 by on 
hundred American Negroes. The volume is chiefly notabl 
for the fact that it contains full page photographs of eac I 
of the one hundred contributors. Of the book and the writ] 
ers the compiler himself says : 27 

23 Paul Laurence Dunbar. 

a * Rev. J. A. Booker, Bishop W. B. Derrick and Rev. J. P. Robinsoi 
The latter may be a man of unmixed Negro blood; the two former ail 
probably men of mixed blood. All three are dark as to color an« 
have the characteristic rough features of the African though in n 
case of an extreme sort. 

28 Of the nineteen names omitted for this reason, one is that of 
full-blood Negro and eighteen are names of mulattoes. 

28 Twentieth Century Negro Literature or Cyclopedia of Thought b 
One Hundred of America's Greatest Negroes. 



77 Preface, pp. 6, 10. 






The History and Biography of the Negro ££5 



This is the only book in which there is such a mag- 
nificent array of Negro talent. Other books of a bi- 
ographical character are objected to, by intelligent 
people who have read them, on the ground that they 
contain too few sketches of scholarly Negroes, and too 
many of Negroes of ordinary ability. . . . But it is 
not to be understood that the one hundred men and 
women mentioned in this book are the only Negro 
scholars in this country. So far from this, there are 
hundreds of other Negroes who are as scholarly, as 
prominent and as active in the work of uplifting their 
race as the one hundred herein given. . . . 

The writers of this book are one hundred of the 
most scholarly and prominent Negroes in America. 

Of the one hundred contributors to the volume, twelve are 
women and eighty-eight are men. The women are in each case 
mulattoes. Of the eighty-eight men, seventy-six are clearly 
and obviously men of mixed blood. Of the twelve remaining, 
all are "black" men though probably not more than four 
are men of unmixed Negro blood. Omitting twenty-seven 
men and three women whose names have appeared in earlier 
pages, 28 the list is as follows: 



J. H. Anderson 
g. G. Atkins 
H. E. Baker 
J. D. Bibb 
E. L. Blackshear 
Mrs. Ariel Bowen 
Mrs. Rosa D. Bowser 
E. M. Brawley 
Geo. F. Braggs, Jr. 
W. H. Brooks 
S. N. Brown 
Henry R. Butler 



Minister, Wilkesbarre, Pa. mulatto 

President Industrial School mulatto 

Clerk in U. S. Patent Office mulatto 

Teacher, Atlanta, Ga. mulatto 

President Industrial School mulatto 

Atlanta, Ga. mulatto 

Teacher, Richmond, Va. mulatto 

Baptist preacher mulatto 

Rector Episcopal Church mulatto 

Baptist preacher mulatto 

Preacher mulatto 

Physician mulatto 

Preacher, A. M. E. Church mulatto 



W. D. Chappelle 

28 Of the SO names omitted for this reason, 5 are of full-blood Ne- 
groes, 22 of men of mixed blood and 3 of women of mixed blood. 



226 



The Mulatto in the United States 



J. M. Cox 


President of College 


mulatto 


J. W. Cromwell 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


D. W. Davis 


Baptist preacher 


black 


I. D. Davis 


Presbyterian preacher 


mulatto 


Mrs. Paul Laurence Dunbar 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


L. B. Ellerson 


Preacher, Jacksonville, Fla. 


mulatto 


J. R. Francis 


Physician and Surgeon 


mulatto 


A. U. Frierson 


Teacher, Biddle University 


black 


J. W. Gilbert 


Teacher, Paine College 


mulatto 


M. W. Gilbert 


Baptist preacher 


mulatto 


G. A. Goodwin 


Teacher, Atlanta Baptist College 


mulatto 


N. W. Harllee 


Teacher, Dallas, Texas 


mulatto 


W. H. Heard 


Preacher, Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


J. T. Hewin 


Lawyer, Richmond, Va. 


mulatto 


Andrew F. Hilyer 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


H. A. Hunt 


Teacher, Biddle University 


mulatto 


Miss Lena T. Jackson 


Teacher, Nashville 


mulatto 


J. Q. Johnson 


Preacher 


mulatto 


J. W. Johnson 


Teacher, Jacksonville, Fla. 


mulatto 


J. H. Jones 


Teacher 


mulatto 


T. W. Jones 


Business man, Chicago 


mulatto 


D. J. Jordan 


Teacher, Morris Brown College 


black w 


S. Kerr 


Rector Episcopal Church 


mulatto 


George L. Knox 


Editor 


mulatto 


W. I. Lewis 


Newspaper reporter 


mulatto 


Mrs. Warren Logan 


Tuskegee Institute 


mulatto 


R. S. Lovinggood 


President of College 


mulatto 


Mrs. Lena Mason 


Hannibal, Mo. 


mulatto 


M. C. B. Mason 


Preacher 


black 


G. M. McClellan 


Teacher, Louisville, Ky. 


mulatto 


J. H. Morgan 


Preacher, Bordentown, N. J. 


mulatto 


G. W. Murray 


Lawyer, Providence, S. C. 


mulatto 


D. W. Olney 


Dentist, Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


W. E. Partee 


Preacher, Richmond, Va. 


mulatto 


B. H. Peterson 


Teacher, Tuskegee Institute 


mulatto 


Mrs. Pettey 


Newbern, N. C. 


mulatto 


J. R. Porter 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


I. L. Purcell 


Lawyer, Pensacola, Fla. 


mulatto 


A. St. George Richardson 


President of College 


mulatto 


G. T. Robinson 


Attorney, Nashville, Tenn. 


black 



39 



Opinion is divided as to whether he should be called a Negro or a, 
mulatto. He is a brown skinned man. 



The History and Biography of the Negro 



mi 



R. G. Robinson 

Mrs. M. E. C. Smith 

R. S. Smith 

Prof. J. H. Smythe 

Mrs. Rosetta D. Sprague 

James Storum 

Mary B. Talbert 

T. W. Talley 

R. W. Thompson 

T. de S. Tucker 

W. N. Wallace 

O. M. Waller 

H. L. Walker 

J. W. Whitaker 

J. R. Wilder 

J. B. L. Williams 

R. P. Wyche 



Principal LaGrange Academy mulatto 

Teacher, Jacksonville, Fla. mulatto 

Lawyer, Washington, D. C. mulatto 

President of Reformatory mulatto 

Washington, D. C. mulatto 

Teacher, Washington, D. C. mulatto 

Buffalo, N. Y. mulatto 

Teacher, Tuskegee Institute mulatto 

Editor mulatto 

Teacher, Baltimore, Md. mulatto 

Editor mulatto 

Rector Episcopal Church mulatto 

Teacher, Augusta, Ga. mulatto 

Tuskegee Institute mulatto 

Physician and Surgeon mulatto 

Pastor M. E. Church mulatto 

Pastor Presbyterian Church mulatto 



Of the seventy new names given above, sixty are names of 
men and ten are names of women. Of the men, five are black 
and fifty-five mulatto, while of the ten women all are mu- 
lattoes. 

Mrs. Williams 30 gives a list of sixty of the presumably 
best known members of the Negro race. Thirty-nine of 
these are men and twenty-one are women. Six of the men, 
while possibly not full-blooded Negroes, may be fairly 
classed as "black." Twenty of the men and eight of the 
women are clearly mulattoes. The remaining thirteen men 
and thirteen women, while doubtless mulattoes, have all the 
characteristic features of the Caucasian race. So of the 
total list of thirty-nine men, not above six can be said to 
be real Negro and thirty-three, at least, are mulattoes. Of 
the twenty-one women, all are clearly mixed-bloods. Omit- 
ting the names of twenty-two men and fourteen women 
which have appeared before, 31 the list is as follows : 

30 Fannie Barrier Williams, A New Negro for a New Century. 

81 Of the thirty-six names omitted for this reason twenty-two are of 



228 



The Mulatto m the United States 



Dr. A. R. Abbott 

Lieut. John H. Alexander 

Louis B. Anderson 

H. E. Archer 

Mrs. Henrietta M. Archer 

Ferdinand L. Barnett 

Mrs. Anna J. Cooper 

E. J. Cooper 

J. Webb Curtis 

Mrs. S. J. Evans 

John R. Francis 

John B. Frence 

General Maximo Gomez 

Mrs. Hart 

Mary C. Jackson 

Miss Lutie A. Lytle 

William M. Martin 

Alexander Miles 

J. Frank McKinley 

Ida Gray Nelson 

J. F. Wheaton 

Edward Wilson 

N. B. Wood 

James H. Young 



mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 



Of the twent3'-four new names in Mrs. Williams's list, 
seventeen are of men and seven of women. One of the men 
is black or nearly so. Sixteen of the men and all of the 
women are mulattoes. Of the twenty-four new names one 
is that of a black Negro and twenty-three are names of 
mulattoes. 

Mr. DuBois, in a volume on the Philadelphia Negro, 32 
mentions seventeen men of Negro blood. Eight of the num- 
ber, all mulattoes, have appeared in the foregoing lists. Of 
the remaining nine names, four are of mulattoes. These are : 

men and fourteen of women. Of the twenty-two names of men, five 
are those of full-blood Negroes and seventeen of mulattoes. All of 
the fourteen women are mulattoes. 

82 W. E. B. DuBois, The Philadelphia Negro. 



The History and Biography of the Negro 



229 



•Robert Adger 
Peter Augustin 
Henry Minton 
Stephen Smith 



Furniture business 

Caterer 

Caterer 

Lumber business 



mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 



Of the five remaining, there is nothing recorded or even 
known. 33 Of the whole list of seventeen, then, at least 
twelve were mulattoes and six were of unknown parentage. 
In Booker T. Washington's Life of Frederick Douglass, 
a total of sixty-nine Negroes are mentioned. Seven of 
these, fugitive slaves and the like, are dropped from con- 
sideration. 34 Of the sixty-two names remaining, fifty-seven 
are men and five are women. Of the men, two are black 
and fifty-five are mulattoes. The five women are all mulat- 
toes. Thirty-three of these names have been listed previ- 
ously. 35 The names of those not heretofore mentioned are: 

Grandmother Bailey 

Anthony Barrier 

Amon C. Beaman 
Hugh M. Browne 
Anthony Burns 
Peter H. Clark 
Thomas Coppin 
William Crafts 
Mrs. William Crafts 
J. Howard Day 

33 Robert Bogle, Henry Jones and Prosser were caterers. Thomas 
Shirley contributed to start a Negro school. The fifth man, Juan, was 
a murderer. 

34 Booker T. Washington calls Lucretia Mott a Negro. This seems 
to be an error. She was apparently a white woman. 

85 Of the total thirty-three names omitted from the list on this ac- 
count, twenty-nine are names of men and four are names of women. 
Each of the four women and twenty-eight of the twenty-nine men are 
of mixed blood. 

"One correspondent called Burns a full-blood Negro. 



Grandmother of 




Fred Douglass 


mulatto 


Father of Fannie B. Williams 


mulatto- 


U. G. R. R. agent 


Indian 


Anti-slavery Agitator 


mulatto 


Founded school 


mulatto 


Fugitive slave 


mulatto M 


Teacher 


mulatto 


Agitator 


mulatto 


Fugitive slave 


mulatto 


Fugitive slave 


mulatto 


Anti-slavery agitator 


mulatto 



230 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Martin R. Delaney 
Thomas L. Dorsey 
Charles R. Douglass 
H. Ford Douglass 
Lewis H. Douglass 
George T. Downing 
Thomas Downing 
John F. Ganes 
Primus Hall 
William Hollowell 
John Jones 
Benjamin Lundy 
William E. Mathews 
Stephen J. Myres 
Charles M. Ray 
William Rich 
A. W. Ross 
G. L. Ruffin 
Theodore S. Wright 



Anti-slavery agitator mulatto 

New York Caterer mulatto 

Son of Fred Douglass mulatto 

Anti-slavery agitator mulatto 

Son of Fred Douglass mulatto 

Delegate to President mulatto 

U. G. R. R. Agent mulatto 

Teacher mulatto 

Ante-bellum teacher mulatto 

Friend of Douglass mulatto 

Delegate to President mulatto 

Anti-slavery agitator mulatto 
Visited President Johnson mulatto 

U. G. R. R. Agent mulatto 

Anti-slavery agitator mulatto 

U. G. R. R. Agent mulatto 

Delegate to President mulatto 

Teacher, Massachusetts mulatto 

Anti-slavery agitator black 



Of the twenty-nine names here presented, twenty-seven 
are of men and two of women. Of the men, one is a full- 
blooded Negro, and twenty-six are mulattoes. The two 
women named are mulattoes. Of the total twenty-nine 
names, one is that of a full-blooded Negro and the remain- 
ing twenty-eight are of mulattoes. 

In Oscar Garrison Villard's Life of John Brown, the 
names of thirty Negroes are mentioned. 37 Some dozen of 
these are names of boys, or slaves, or Negro neighbors of 
Brown who, being mentioned only incidentally in the nar- 
rative, are here left out of consideration. Of the remain- 
ing eighteen names, two are of women and sixteen of men. 
Of the names of men, one is that of a black man and fif- 
teen are of mulattoes. Of the two names of women, one is 
that of a black woman and one of a woman of mixed blood. 
Ten of the individuals have been previously mentioned and 

8T Villard is of course a white man but his volume is included here 
because of the group of Negroes not elsewhere mentioned. 



The History and Biography of the Negro 231 



their names are omitted here. 38 The names of persons not 
previously mentioned are as follows: 



Osborn Perry Anderson 
James M. Bell 
John Anthony Copeland 
Newby Dangerfield 
Jim Daniels 
Shields Green 
James E. O'Harra 
Lewis S. Leary 



One of the "Men at Arms" mulatto 8 * 

Friend of John Brown mulatto 

One of the "Men at Arms" mulatto 

One of the "Men at Arms" mulatto 40 

Slave in Kansas mulatto 

One of the "Men at Arms" black 41 

United States Congress mulatto 

One of the "Men at Arms" mulatto 



Of the eight new names here presented, one is that of a 
black man and seven are names of men of mixed blood. 

In the volume by Carter Godwin Woodson on Negro edu- 
cation, 42 are mentioned the names of one hundred and fifty 
individuals as Negroes who had some part either as teachers 
or as students in the eduation of the Negro before the Civil 
War. One of these individuals was an East Indian who 
seems to have had no admixture of Negro blood. 43 He is 
here dropped from further consideration as are also the 
names of some half a dozen who are simply mentioned as 
slaves, and a goodly number of other persons of such minor 
importance that they were unknown outside their own fam- 
ily group. After these eliminations one hundred and seven 
names remained. Of these, eighty-eight were men and nine- 
teen were women. Of the men, seventy-nine were mulattoes 

88 These ten names include one black woman, one mulatto woman 
and eight mulatto men. 

"Also known as Perry Anderson Osborn. He had a habit of re- 
versing his name. 

40 Or perhaps Dangerfield Newby. His father was a white man by 
the name of Newby. 

41 Of John Brown's "Men at Arms" sixteen were white men and 
five were Negroes. Green was the only Negro of full blood. 

48 The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861. 
"William Appo, musician. 



232 



The Mulatto in the United States 



and nine were black men. Eighteen of the women were mu- 
lattoes and* one seems to have been a woman of pure blood. 
Sixty of the one hundred and seven names have appeared 
in preceding lists. 44 The forty-seven not previously men- 
tioned are listed as follows : 



John C. Anderson 

B. W. Arnett 

A. T. Augusta 

George Bell 

James T. Bradford 

F. L. Cardozo 

T. Morris Chester 

Daniel Coker 

J. C. Corbin 

Martha Costin 

Garrison Draper 

Charles Henry Green 

Robert Harlan 

Josiah Henson 

George Horton 

William L. Jackson 

John Thomas Johnson 

John S'. Leary 

Samuel Lowry 

Martha Martin and sister 

Mary E. Miles 

S. T. Mitchell 

J. Morris 

Robert Morris 

William Nell 

Gowan Pamphlet 

John Prout 
Charles L. Reason 
Sarah Redmond 



44 Of the 60 omitted for this reason 52 were men and 8 were women. 
Of the men 3 were black and 49 were of mixed blood. Of the women, 
one was black and the remaining 7 were mulattoes. 

"Woodson, Education of the Negro, p. 281. 



Musician 


mulatto 


Teacher in Pennsylvania 


mulatto 


Physician 


mulatto 


Built Negro school in D. C. 


mulatto 


Caterer, Baltimore 


mulatto 


Studied in white school 


mulatto 


Student at Pittsburg 


mulatto 


Teacher in Baltimore 


mulatto 


Teacher in Kentucky 


mulatto 


Teacher in D. C. 


mulatto 


Lawyer in Maryland 


mulatto 


Slave who learned to read 


mulatto 


Taught by master's family 


mulatto 


Fugitive slave. Preacher 


black 


Slave. Preacher. Illiterate 


mulatto 


Musician 


mulatto 


Teacher, Pittsburg 


black 


North Carolina Legislature 


mulatto 


Early preacher in Tenn. 


black 


Educated slaves 


mulattoes 


Teacher in Mass. and Pa. 


mulatto 


Once President of Wilberforce 


mulatto 


Student in Charleston 


mulatto 


Early Politician, Mass. 


mulatto 


"Embellished Negro History" 4a 


mulatto 


Preacher in Virginia about 




1800 


black 


Teacher in D. C. 


mulatto 


Teacher of Negroes 


mulatto 


Negro school girl 


mulatto 






The History and Biography of the Negro 



233 



Fannie Richards 

D. R. Roberts 

B. K. Sampson 

Mary Ann Shadd (Carey) 

Thomas Sidney 

John Baptist Snowden 

T. McCants Stewart 

Mother of Mary C. Terrell 

Father of R. H. Terrell 

Julian Troumontaine 

George B. Vachon 

T. P. White 

W. J. White 

Ann Woodson 

Emma J. Woodson 

James Wormley 

Mary Wormley 



Teacher in Detroit mulatto 

Preacher, Chicago mulatto 

Teacher, Avery College mulatto 

Teacher in Canada mulatto 

Helped build school house black 

Preacher black 

Studied in Charleston mulatto 

Learned French and English mulatto 

Learned to read when a slave mulatto 

Teacher, Savannah mulatto 

Teacher, Avery College mulatto 

Reconstruction politician mulatto 

Taught by white mother mulatto 

Taught by mistress mulatto 

Teacher, Avery College mulatto 

Student in D. C. mulatto 

Teacher, D. C. mulatto 



In Daniels's 46 study of the Boston Negroes 47 are men- 
tioned some men and women of the Negro race of more or 
less prominence in and about Boston in the early days. This 
number is exclusive of some dozen or score of individuals 
who are simply mentioned as slaves, of children and of ob- 
scure individuals who do not appear from the text or other 
sources of information to be persons of any note or prom- 
inence in the community. Of the one hundred and forty- 
eight considered, one hundred and twenty-five are names 
of men and twenty-three are names of women. Of the men, 
fourteen appear to have been black or at least considered 
so by people who recall them. One hundred and eleven are 
known to have been men of mixed blood. Of the women, 
one was black and twenty-two were mulattoes. Of the one 
hundred and forty-eight individuals whose ancestry was 
traced, fifteen were black or nearly so and one hundred and 

"Daniels is a white man but his book is included here because of 
the large number of New England Negroes whom he mentions. 
47 John Daniels, In Freedom's Birthplace. 



234 



The Mulatto in the United States 



thirty-three were individuals of mixed blood. Forty of the 
names appear in preceding lists and are omitted here. 48 
The names of those individuals who have not been mentioned 
heretofore are: 

Mrs. Agnes Adams 
Isaac B. Allen 
Macon B. Allen 

J. H. Allston 

Philip J. Allston 

E. H. Armistead 

William O. Armstrong 
Powhattan Bagnall 
J. B. Bailey 
Gertrude M. Baker 
Walden Banks 

Jehial C. Beaman 
Edgar P. Benjamin 
Paul C. Brooks 

E. E. Brown 

W. W. Bryant 

Seymour Burr 

Mrs. Olivia Ward Bush 

Jacqueline Carroll 

Julius B. Chappelle 

J. Milton Clark 

Jonas Clark 

Bob Cole 

Robert F. Coursey 

48 Of the 40 omitted, 7 were women and 33 men. Of the women, one 
was black and six were mulattoes. Of the men, 2 were black and 
31 were mulattoes. 

49 This is not concurred in by all the authorities. 

60 He and his brother were called "The White Slaves." 



Organizer of Negro women 


mulatto 


Served on Governor's Council 


black *° 


First Negro admitted to the 




bar 


mulatto 


Member Common Council, 




Boston 


mulatto 


Member Negro Business 




League 


mulatto 


Member Common Council, 




Boston 


mulatto 


Member of Congress 


mulatto 


Minister 


mulatto 


Taught boxing in Boston 


mulatto 


Teacher in Cambridge 


mulatto 


Member Common Council, 




Boston 


mulatto 


Pastor A. M. E. Z. Church 


mulatto 


Lawyer, Boston 


mulatto 


Member Common Council, 




Boston 


mulatto 


Deputy Tax Collector, Boston 


mulatto 


First Negro official in Boston 


black 


Soldier in the Revolution 


mulatto 


Negro Club woman, Boston 


mulatto 


Teacher, Boston 


mulatto 


Member Mass. Legislature 


mulatto 


Member Common Council, 




Cambridge 


mulatto M 


Abolitionist, Boston 


black 


Comedian 


mulatto 


Property owner, Boston 


mulatto 



The History and Biography of the Negro 235 



W. Alexander Cox 

Joshua Crawford 
W. E. Crum 
William Crowdy 
Thomas Dalton 
Louise DeMortie 
Mark DeMortie 
Theodore Drury 
Rev. Henry Duckery 
William Dupree 
Hosea Easton 
Joshua Easton 
Eliza Gardner 
C. N. Garland 
Nelson Gaskins 



I Julius B. Goddard 

■ 

George F. Grant 
Marjorie Groves 
Charles H. Hall 

Charles E. Harris 

Gilbert C. Harris 
William A. Hazel 

Robert Hemmings 

John T. Hilton 

M. Hamilton Hodges 

A. H. Hunt 

Billy Johnson 

W. C. Lane 

George Latimer 

Andrew E. Lattimore 

Joseph Lee 

J. H. Lewis 



Member Negro Business 

League black 

Lawyer. Politician mulatto M 

Minister to Liberia mulatto 

"Prophet" black 

Merchant mulatto 

Teacher, New Orleans mulatto 

Abolitionist mulatto 

Opera Producer mulatto 

Office holder, Boston mulatto 

Federal appointee mulatto 

Abolitionist mulatto 

Mass. anti-slavery society mulatto 

Organizer of Negro women mulatto 

Physician, Boston mulatto 
Member Common Council, 

Boston mulatto 

Office holder, Washington black B2 

Dentist, Boston mulatto 

Teacher, Boston mulatto 
Member Common Council, 

Boston mulatto 
House of Representatives, 

1894-95 mulatto 

Wig manufacturer, Boston mulatto 
Draftsman and architect, 

Boston mulatto 

Painter in Paris mulatto 

Abolitionist, Boston mulatto 

Singer in Australia mulatto 68 

Physician mulatto 

Comedian mulatto 

Physician. Office holder mulatto 

Fugitive slave mulatto 

House of Representatives mulatto 

Innkeeper, Boston mulatto 

Tailor, Boston mulatto 



51 One correspondent considered Crawford a full-blood Negro. 
Questioned by one authority. 

Hodges is a dark mulatto, not a full-blood Negro as is frequently 
asserted. 



52 



SS 



236 



The Mulatto in the United States 



William C. Lovett 

George W. Lowther 

Geo. Reginald Margetson 
Napoleon B. Marshall 
John Sella Martin 
W. Clarence Matthews 
Cornelius McKane 
Mrs. Nellie B. Mitchell 
Clement G. Morgan 
William G. Nell 
Osborn A. Newton 
Dr. Thomas W. Patrick 
Rev. Thomas Paul 
"Dr." Peters 
Don T. Pinheiro 
Coffin Pitts 
"Elder" Plummer 
James W. Pope 

John T. Raymond 
Theodore H. Raymond 
William L. Reed 
Dr. Isaac L. Roberts 
David R. Robinson 

David Rock 
Stanley Ruffin 

John E. Scarlett 

Rev. M. A. N. Shaw 
S. William Simms 

Blanche V. Smith 
Eleanor A. Smith 
Mrs. Hannah G. Smith 



Officer Negro Business 
League 

House of Representatives, 
1883 

Poet 

Deputy Tax Collector 

Minister, Boston 

Athletic director 

Physician, Boston 

Music teacher 

Lawyer. Alderman 

Father of William C. Nell 

Member Common Council 

Pharmacist, Boston 

Early abolitionist 

Husband of Phyllis Wheatley 

Dentist. West Indian 

Old clothes dealer 

Minister, Boston 

Member Common Council, 
Boston 

Minister in Boston 

Director Y. M. C. A. 

Deputy tax collector 

Physician, Boston 

Member Common Council, 
Boston 

Lawyer. Physician 

Member Common Council, 
Boston 

Member Gen. Colored Associ- 
ation 

Minister. West Indian 

Janitor. Common Council, 
Boston 

Teacher in Boston 

Teacher in Boston 



54 



Organizer of Negro women 

One correspondent called Plummer a black man. 
85 One authority called Roberts a full-blood. 
Be Called by one authority "pure-Negro." He is a dark 
but seems to be of mixed ancestry. 



mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto ** 

mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto M 

mulatto 
mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 
mulatto M 

mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 



brown mar 



The History and Biography of the Negro £87 



Harriet Smith 


Teacher in Boston 


mulatto 


Joshua B. Smith 


Caterer. Abolitionist 


mulatto 


Mary E. Smith 


Teacher in Boston 


mulatto 


William Stevenson 


Member Common Council, 






Boston 


mulatto 


James Still 


Leader following war 


mulatto 


H. Gordon Street 


Editor, Boston 


mulatto 


Julian Stubbs 


Office holder, Washington, 






D. C. 


mulatto 


Robert T. Teamoh 


House of Representatives, 






1916 


mulatto 


James M. Trotter 


Father of politician 


mulatto 


Dihdwo Twe 


Liberian student in Boston 


black 


Walker 


Comedian 


mulatto 


Edwin G. Walker 


Legislature. Son of David 






Walker 


mulatto 


Walter F. Walder 


In Liberia 


mulatto 


Mrs. S. I. N. Washington 


Daughter of G. T. Downing 


mulatto 


Charles W. M. Williams 


Clerk of Juvenile Court, Bos- 






ton 


black 


James G. Wolff 


Clerk under district attorney 


mulatto 


James H. Wolff 


Head of Massachusetts 






G. A. R. 


mulatto 


E. I. Wright 


Physician 


mulatto 


Mrs. Minnie T. Wright 


Organizer of Negro women 


mulatto 


Butler R. Wilson 
Iola D. Yates 


Attorney 
Teacher 


mulatto 
mulatto 



Of the one hundred and eight new names here presented, 
twelve are names of men who are generally considered to be 
full-blood Negroes. The remaining ninety-six names are in 
all cases names of mulattoes. Sixteen of these are of mu- 
latto women and eighty are names of mulatto men. 

Booker T. Washington prepared a most elaborate com- 
pilation of the sort that we are considering in this chapter. 
In the two volumes of the work, 57 are mentioned nearly four 
hundred individuals who have made a success in life some- 
what above the average of their fellows. In most cases the 

67 The Story of the Negro. 



238 



The Mulatto in the United States 



success is not great; it can only be called success, in fact, 
when it is measured by the low level of efficiency that pre- 
vails generally in the black group. But even the small de- 
gree of relative success makes these persons exceptional men 
within the race, and this is the matter of importance here. 
Dropping from the count some score of individuals, in most 
cases slaves, criminals, children and the like concerning 
whom there is absolutely nothing known and who do not ap- 
pear from the text or from other sources to have been in any 
way important persons, there remain three hundred and 
fifty-one individuals. Of these, three hundred and eleven 
are names of men and forty are of women. Of the men, 
twenty-nine seem to have been black or nearly so and two 
hundred and eighty-two are known to have been men of 
mixed blood. Of the forty women, six passed as black and 
thirty-four were mulattoes. Of the total three hundred and 
fifty-one individuals, thirty-five passed as black and three 
hundred and sixteen were persons of mixed ancestry. Omit- 
ting the names of persons who have been mentioned in pre- 
ceding lists 58 we have the following names : 



Lewis Adams 


Teacher, Tuskegee Institute 


mulatto 


A. R. Abbott 


Physician 


mulatto 


William G. Allen 


Published "National Watch- 






man" 


mulatto 


Ernest Attwell 


Business Agent, Tuskegee 


mulatto 


Joseph S. Attwell 


Preacher 


mulatto 


L. K. Attwood 


Bank President, Jackson, Miss. 


mulatto 


Maria L. Baldwin 


Teacher, Cambridge, Mass. 


mulatto 


John J. Benson 


Farmer, Alabama 


mulatto 


William E. Benson 


Real Estate dealer, Alabama 


mulatto 


E. C. Berry 


Hotel keeper, Athens, Ohio 


mulatto 


Jesse Binga 


Real Estate Dealer, Chicago 


mulatto 



08 One hundred and seventy names are thus omitted — 151 men and 
19 women. Of the men 14 were black and 137 were mulattoes; of the 
women one was black and 18 were mulattoes. 



The History and Biography of the Negro 239 



1 ames Bond 
Boyd 

Tack Bowler 

bellow Bragg 
IA.. M. Brown 

Rev. William W. Brown 
[Henry E. Brown 

I. H. Bugg 

W. P. Burrell 
f George L. Burroughs 
L. L. Burwell 
Hon. J. E. Bush 
tBishop J. B. Campbell 
) Richard Carroll 
:Paul Chretien 
(Elijah Cook 
t Bishop Elias Cottrell 
Henry K. Craft 
Samuel Crowther 
Boston Crummell 

W. D. Crura 

Bishop Curtis 

Austin Dabney 

Sam Dailey 

William Howard Day 

Jennie Dean 
George de Baptiste 
Juan de Valladelid 
John H. Deveaux 

Rev. Moses Dickson 
Dr. Sadie Dillon 

C. N. Dorsette 



Berea College trustee mulatto 
Physician, Nashville mulatto 
Insurrectionist 1800 black 
Free Negro tailor, N. C. mulatto 
Physician, Alabama mulatto 
Organized True Reformers mulatto 
Director Y. M. C. A. black 50 
Physician, Savannah mulatto 
Secretary of True Reformers mulatto 
U. G. R. R. Agent, Illinois mulatto 
Physician, Selma, Alabama mulatto 
Lodge official mulatto 
Made donation to Wilberforce mulatto °° 
Founded home for orphans mulatto 
Father of free Negro in La. mulatto 
Undertaker, Montgomery, Ala. black 
Founded industrial school mulatto 
Tuskegee Institute mulatto 
First native Bishop to Africa black 
Father of Alexander. "Afri- 
can Prince" black 
Collector of Customs, Charles- 
ton mulatto 
54 Mass. Regiment in Civil 

War mulatto 

Soldier in Revolution mulatto 

Donated land to reform school black 
Published "The Alienated 

American" mulatto 
Established industrial school black 91 
U. G. R. R. Agent, Michigan mulatto 
Negro Count, Seville, 1474 mulatto 
Collector of Customs, Savan- 
nah mulatto 
Founder of Fraternal Order mulatto 62 
First woman doctor in Ala- 
bama mulatto 
First Doctor in Montgomery mulatto 



69 Disputed by one authority. 

60 One authority called Campbell "a pure Negro." 

91 One correspondent said "dark mulatto." 

83 One authority considered Dickson a pure Negro. 



240 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Vice-President Dossen 
Charles R. Douglass 
Dubuclet 

Alexander Dunlop 
E. F. Eggleston 
Matilda A. Evans 
W. R. Fields 
John S. Gaines 
G. W. Gibson 
Henry Gordon 
Sarah Gordon 
Rev. William Gray 

Benjamin T. Green 
William E. Gross 
George C. Hall 
Prince Hall 
R. M. Hall 
Fenton Harper 

T. N. Harris 
Jare Haralson 
T. S. Hawkins 
Matt Henson 
E. M. Hewlett 
L. P. Hill 
Mrs. L. Hill 
Richard Holloway 
J. T. Holly 
Harry Hosier 
A. Hubbard 

John Hyman 
Deal Jackson 
Jennie Jackson 
John Jasper 
Cordelia A. Jennings 
Mrs. Mary F. Jennings 
Rev. O. C. Jenkins 
L. E. Johnson 



63 Or nearly so. 

81 The authorities about equally divided. 



Liberian embassy 


black 


Son of Frederick Douglass 


mulatto 


Physician and musician, France 


mulatto 


Northern political agitator 


mulatto 


Preacher, Baltimore 


mulatto 


Physician, Orangeburg, S. C. 


black " 


Undertaker, Savannah 


mulatto 


Cincinnati 


mulatto 


Ex-President of Liberia 


mulatto 


Donation to Wilberforce 


mulatto 


Wife of Henry Gordon 


mulatto 


Organized Savings and Loan 




Co. 


mulatto 


Mound Bayou 


mulatto 


Caterer, New York 


mulatto 


Physician, Chicago 


mulatto 


"Master" first Masonic Lodge 


mulatto 


Physician, Baltimore 


mulatto 


Married Francis Ellen Wat- 




kins 


mulatto 


Physician, Mobile 


mulatto 


United States Congress 


black 


Physician 


mulatto 


With Peary 


mulatto 


Lawyer and politician, D. C. 


mulatto 


Founded industrial school 


mulatto 


Wife of L. P. Hill 


mulatto 


Free Negro of Charleston 


mulatto 


Bishop of Haiti 


black 


Methodist preacher 


black 


Toronto Board of Trade 


mulatto- 




Indian 


United States Congress 


mulatto 


Farmer, Albany, Georgia 


black 


First Jubilee Singer 


black w 


Illiterate preacher, Va. 


black 


Teacher in Philadelphia 


mulatto 


Teacher 


mulatto 


Courtland, Va. 


mulatto 


Y. M. C. A., Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 



The History and Biograph" of the Negro 841 



tot. G Johnson 
. G. Jones 
^iley Jones 
. A. Kenney 
'/ambert family 
t 5ishop Isaac Lane 
latthew Leary 
latthew Leary, Jr. 
"efferson Long 

1. L. Lugrade 
J. G. Mason 
Victoria E. Matthews 
)wen McCarty 

lam McCord 
5. H. McKissack 

fohn Merrick 

rhomas H. Miller 
Ben Montgomery 
rhornton Montgomery 
\lbert Morris 
Freeman Morris 
Francis J. Moultry 
jeorge A. Myers 
Charles E. Nash 
Dwen T. B. Nickens 
Peter Ogden 
£eebe Ossie 
Foseph E. Otis 
Dinah Pace 

2. W. Perry 

[. Garland Penn 
John Peterson 
Napoleon Pinchback 
I M. Pollard 
VI aggie Porter 
Joseph C. Price 
Charles B. Purvis 
Charlotte Ray 

3. C. Redmond 



Editor Savannah "Tribune" black 

Early settler in Chicago mulatto 

Business man, Pine Bluff, Ark. mulatto 

Physician, Tuskegee mulatto 

Seven musicians mulattoes 

Founded Lane College mulatto 

Father of politician mulatto 

Reconstruction politician mulatto 

U. S. Congress from Georgia mulatto 

Stock holder, Boley Bank mulatto 

Physician, Alabama mulatto 

New York mulatto 

Runaway slave, 1773 mulatto 

Farmer in Alabama mulatto 
Treasurer of Odd Fellows, 

Miss. mulatto 
Founder Mutual and Provi- 
dent Association, N. C. mulatto 
U. S. Congress, S. C. mulatto 
Slave of Joseph Davis mulatto 
Slave of Joseph Davis mulatto 
Free Negro tailor, N. C. mulatto 
Free Negro tailor, N. C. mulatto 
Caterer, Yonkers, N. Y. mulatto 
Barber, Cleveland, Ohio mulatto 
Politician. Reconstructionist mulatto 
Teacher in Ohio, 1820 mulatto 
First Negro Odd Fellow mulatto 
On last ship load of slaves Mandingo 
Northern Political Agitator mulatto 
Founded Industrial School mulatto 
Business man, Boley, Oklahoma mulatto 
Physician mulatto 
Principal first Negro Normal mulatto 
Brother of P. B. S. Pinchback mulatto 
Bank director, Savannah mulatto 
Mrs. Cole, Detroit. Singer black 65 
President Livingston College black 
Teacher, Howard University mulatto 
First Negro woman lawyer mulatto 
Physician, Jackson, Miss. mulatto 



63 



One correspondent called Mrs. Cole "Pure Negro." 



2 1 2 



The Mulatto in the United States 



i S. Reed 
Prank Rdd 

])n\v Reid 
John S. Rock 
Mrs. T. A. Ridley 
II. K. Rischcr 
\ W. Hoss 
Darid Ruggles 
James S. Russell 
Thomas Rutling 
Peter Salem 

George M. Sampson 
Benjamin Sampson 
James D. Sampson 
Thomas Sanderson 
J, If. Sanifer 
Walter Scott 
Victor Sejour 
Pixky Isaka Seme 
Mrs. Mary K. Shaw 
Ella Sheppard 
.Mr. Sheppard 
W. II. Sheppard 
Mrs. J. A. Shorter 
Alfred Smith 

Charles H. Smiley 
James McCune Smith 

John II. Smythe 
•'-'lin C, Stanley 
John Stanley 
Alexander Stanley 
Charles Stanley 
W. K. Sterrs 
' rle Steele 
J . A. Stewart 

Peter still 
John St. Pierre 

St. Benedict, The Moor 



Organized Union Benefit Assoc, mulatto 

Fanner near Tuskegee mulatto 

Farmer near Tuskegee mulatto 

Lawyer, Boston, about 1865 mulatto 

Brookline, Mass. mulatto 

Baker, Jackson, Miss. mulatto 

Northern political agitator mulatto 

U. G. R. R. Agent mulatto 

Teacher, Lawrenceville, Va. mulatto 

Jubilee Singer mulatto 
Soldier in battle of Bunker 

Hill mulatto 

Teacher, Tallahassee, Fla. mulatto 

Teacher, Wilber force, Ohio mulatto 

Published The Colored Citizen mulatto 

Associated with Prince Hall mulatto 

Farmer, Alabama mulatto 

Officer Negro Bank, Savannah mulatto 

Writer of verse, Paris mulatto 

Student at Columbia, 1907 Zulu 

Gave money to Tuskegee mulatto 

Mrs. G. W. Moore. Singer mulatto 

Father of singer mulatto 

Missionary to Africa mulatto 

Wife of Bishop Shorter mulatto 
Successful cotton grower of 

Okla. mulatto 

Early caterer, Chicago mulatto 

Early physician mulatto 

Minister to Liberia mulatto 

"Barber Jack." Free Negro mulatto 

Son of John C. Stanley mulatto 

Son of John C. Stanley mulatto 

Son of John C. Stanley mulatto 
Physician, Decatur, Alabama -^mulatto 
Founded orphanage in Atlanta^mulatto 

Physician, Nashville mulatto 
Fugitive slave. Brother of 

William Still n\ mulatto 
Father of Mrs. Josephine *^nulatto- 

Ruffin Indian 

Palermo, Sicily mulatto 



The History arid Biography of the Negro 



243 



D. C. Suggs 


Teacher in Georgia 


mulatto 


R. R. Taylor 


Teacher, Tuskegee 


mulatto 


James C. Thomas 


Undertaker. "Richest Negro 






In N. Y." 


mulatto 


Mrs. Lucy Thurman 


W. C. T. U. Worker 


mulatto 


John S. Trower 


Caterer, Philadephia 


mulatto 


Victor H. Tulane 


Grocer, Philadelphia 


mulatto 


Benjamin S. Turner 


U. S. Congress, Alabama 


mulatto 


Denmark Vesey 


Insurrectionist, 1822 


mulatto 


Josiah T. Wall 


U. S. Congress, Florida 


mulatto 


0. S. B. Wall 


Captain in Civil War 


mulatto 


S. R. Ward 


Editor "Imperial Citizen," 






1848 


mulatto 


J. H. N. Waring 


Teacher, Baltimore 


mulatto 


Westons 


Wealthy family, Charleston, 






S. C. 


mulattoes 


Heber E. Wharton 


Teacher, Baltimore 


mulatto 


George Washington Williajns 


Minister to Haiti, 1888 


mulatto 


Henry Work 


Father of Monroe Work 


mulatto 


Elizabeth E. Wright 


Founder of Voorhees Ind. 






School 


black 



Of the one hundred and eighty new names presented in 
this list, one hundred and fifty-seven are of men and twenty- 
three are of women. One hundred and forty-two of the men 
and eighteen of the women are of mixed blood. Fifteen of 
the men and five of the women are Negroes who seem to be 
of pure blood. 

The analysis of this semi-biographical and semi-historieal 
material has given in all the names of six hundred and twen- 
ty-seven individuals not mentioned in the preceding chap- 
ter, who have made a more or less conspicuous success in 
life as measured by the standards of the Negro race. Five 
hundred and twenty-two of the names are of men and one 
hundred and five are names of women. Of the five hundred 
and twenty-two names of men mentioned four hundred and 
sixty-five are of mulattoes and fifty-seven are names of black 
Negroes. The names of the one hundred and five women 



£44 The Mulatto in the United States 

divide into ninety-eight mulattoes and seven black women. Of 
the total six hundred and twenty-seven names, sixty-four are 
names of black Negroes and five hundred and sixty-three are 
nanus of individuals of a mixed ancestry (see p. 245). 

Of the six hundred and twenty-seven persons considered 
in this chapter, the ratio of mulattoes to Negroes of pure 
blood is approximately nine to one. In a few cases, there 
wis not full agreement among men acquainted with the per- 
son in question as to whether he should be classed as a man 
of pure or of mixed blood. Attention has been called to 
these cases as they appeared in the text. The rule followed 
in such cases was to class the man as a pure-blood Negro 
unless the evidence to the contrary seemed conclusive. It is 
believed, therefore, that any errors of classification that 
may appear tend to make the ratio of mulattoes to Negroes 
of pure blood appear somewhat smaller than is actually the 
case. However, any error in classification of a single man 
or even a dozen or a score out of a list of over six hundred 
would not materially alter the ratio. Should the twenty 
odd individuals in the full-blood group concerning whose 
purity of blood there has been question raised, be placed 
in the mixed-blood group the ratio of mulattoes to full- 
bloods would stand slightly over thirteen to one. Should, 
on the other hand, the dozen individuals in the mulatto 
group who by some correspondents were called full-blooded 
be placed in the full-blooded group the ratio of mulattoes 
to full-bloods would be slightly over eight to one. Any 
considerable variation from the findings of nine mulattoes 
to one full-blood Negro in the books analyzed, would imply 
a shifting from the definition of mulatto accepted for the 
purpose of this study. 66 

"A Negro with sufficient admixture of white blood to readily distin- 
guish him from Negroes of pure blood. See p. 11 above. 



The History and Biography of the Negro 245 






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CHAPTER X 

THE NEGRO AND THE MULATTO IN PROFESSIONAL AND 

ARTISTIC PURSUITS 



Tl 1 E various lists given in the preceding chapters prob- 
ably include the great majority of the Negroes who 
have shown noteworthy ability, or made any very excep- 
tional success in life. But as these lists were for the most 
pari of a general nature, that is, groupings of men and 
women from various lines of human endeavor, it may be 
worth while to consider the relative success the black Negro 
and the mulatto have had in some of the specific lines of en- 
deavor. For this purpose we will consider: I. the Army 
and Navy, II. Politics, III. Inventions, IV. Medicine and 
Dentistry, V. Law, VI. Education, VII. the Ministry, VIII. 
Literature, IX. Editors and Newspaper men, X. Artists, 
XI. the Stage, XII. Composers and Musicians, and XIII. 
Business men. 

The Negroes have played a part, albeit no very conspic- 
uous one, in every war in which the United States has been 
involved. In the Revolutionary War, Negroes, both slave 
and lie.-, were found on both sides. Crispus Attucks, a Bos- 
ton man of mixed Indian, Negro, and white blood, is said 
io have been the first man killed in the so-called Boston 
Massacre. In the second war with Great Britain, and es- 
peciaUy in the Battle of New Orleans, Negro soldiers were 
engaged in considerable numbers. 1 In the Civil War, espe- 

1 Xegro Year Book, 1914-1915, pp. 154-55. 

246 






The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 247 

cially during the latter stages, large numbers of Negro sol- 
diers were enlisted in the Union armies. 2 While the Con- 
federacy consistently refused to allow slaves to be employed 
as soldiers and in some cases refused to accept the proffered 
assistance of free Negroes, 3 the Southern armies neverthe- 
less employed a considerable number of Negroes, both slave 
and free, as laborers, and a few free Negroes seem to have 
been enrolled as soldiers. 4 

The Negro Year Book 5 mentions three men as having 
gained some distinction in the Civil War: A. T. Augusta, 
Surgeon in the Seventeenth Regiment United States Volun- 
teers ; A. W. Abbott, Army Surgeon ; and H. M. Turner, an 
Army Chaplain. All three men were mulattoes. 

Three Negroes have been graduated from the United 
States Military Academy at West Point. 6 They were in 
each case mulattoes. 

In the United States Army, there are eleven Negro offi- 
cers. 7 They are in every case mulattoes. 

Lt. Col. A. Allensworth, (retired) Chaplain, 24th Infantry mulatto 
Major W. T. Anderson, (retired) Chaplain, 9th Cavalry mulatto 

2 The soldiers seem to have been about equally divided between Ne- 
groes and mulattoes. The 55th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry, for 
example, had a total of 980 enlisted men. Four hundred and thirty 
were mulattoes and 550 were apparently pure black. The black men 
were probably two or three times as numerous as the mulattoes in the 
general population. See Burt G. Wilder, "The Brain of the American 
Negro," Proceedings of the First National Negro Conference, p. 49. 

8 The color of these free Negroes, according to General Butler, was 
"about that of Vice-President Hamlin, or the late Mr. Daniel Webster." 
See J. P. Ficklen, The History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, p. 121. 

4 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, pp. 157-59. 

6 Ibid., p. 159. 

8 Henry O. Flipper mulatto 

John H. Alexander mulatto 

Charles Young mulatto 

'Ibid., p. 161. 



248 The Mulatto in the United States 

Lieutenant Louis A. Carter, Chaplain, 10th Cavalry mulatto 

Lieutenant B. O. Davis, 10th Cavalry mulatto 

Lieutenant J. E. Green, 25th Infantry mulatto 

Lieutenant W. W. Gladden, Chaplain, 24th Infantry mulatto 

.Major John R. Lynch, (retired) Paymaster Indian and 

mulatto 

Captain G. W. Prioleau, Chaplain, 9th Cavalry mulatto 

Lieutenant O. J. W. Scott, Chaplain, 25th Infantry mulatto 

Captain T. G. Steward, (retired) Chaplain, 25th Infantry mulatto 

Major Charles Young, nth Cavalry mulatto 

From all other sources of information were obtained facts 
in regard to twenty-six other men who hold, or have held, 
military positions of some importance in the regular army 
or in the National Guard, or have particularly distinguished 
themselves by deeds of valor. Of these men, three were dark 
men ; though in no case is it certain that they were Negroes 
of full blood. The other twenty-three were in all cases 
mulattoes. 8 

In the military affairs of the nation, it would thus ap- 
pear that the race, so far at least as offices and honors go, 
is represented almost exclusively by its lighter-colored mem- 
bers. Of the forty-four men mentioned in this section, forty- 
one at least are men of mixed blood. Nine of these men have 
been previously mentioned in other connections. Thirty-two 
of the remaining thirty-five men are mulattoes. Throwing 
into tabular form this information concerning the ethnic 
ancestry of these members of the race who have distinguished 
themselves in a military way we have the following: 

8 In military affairs Toussaint is, of course, the one conspicuous ex- 
ample of military ability among the members of the race so far. He 
was probably not a full-blood Negro though he was identified with and 
led the blacks as opposed to the mulatto faction. The National heroes 
of Cuba— Gomez and Maceo — are said to have both been men of some 
intermixture of Negro blood. The same thing seems to be true of 
Panco Villa. None of these men, however, excepting Toussaint, dis- 
played any particular ability as military leaders. 






1 


1 





3 


3 





3 


3 





11 


11 


3 


23 


26 


3 


41 


44 





9 


9 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 249 

I Black Mulatto Total 

Soldiers in the Revolutionary War 
Soldiers in the Civil War 
Graduates of West Point 
Officers of the U. S. Army 
Other Noted Soldiers 

Totals 

Names Repeated 

Corrected totals 3 3% 35 

In the Navy, so far as officers go, the Negroes are not 

represented. 

The Negro has played no very conspicuous or important 
part in the political life of America. For the most part, 
he has been barred from participation in politics. Prior 
to the Civil War, speaking generally, he took no part in the 
political life of the country. The emancipation of the Ne- 
gro and the Reconstruction following, brought into prom- 
inence a number of Negroes who passed into oblivion with 
the passing of the Reconstruction regime and the restora- 
tion of law and order in the southern states. 9 Since this 
period, politics — except in a very limited and mostly local 
way — has all but ceased to be a field of endeavor open to 
men of the race. 

Furthermore, the part that the Negro has taken in the 
political life of the country has not reflected to his credit. 
Bruce 10 says: 

9 "In considering who and what are representative Negroes there are 
circumstances which compel one to question what is a representative 
man of the colored race. Some men are born great, some achieve great- 
ness and others lived during the Reconstruction period. . . ." Paul 
Laurence Dunbar, "Representative American Negroes," The Negro 
Problem, p. 189. 

10 P. A. Bruce, The Plantation Negro as a Freeman, p. 72. 



The Mulatto in the United States 

. . . Those who have obtained seats in the Legisla- 
ture, have won no special reputation for practical ca- 
pacity by an intelligent devotion to business; and as 
they are generally silent members or wandering and 
irrelevant when they have risen to their feet, they have 
exercised no marked influence on the enactment of laws, 
excepi by the votes they have cast. Indeed, the ma- 
jority have not been at all superior to the mass of their 
race in force of character or intellect; many, in fact, 
have been inferior, and their election to a position of 
so much responsibility can only be explained on the 
ground of accident. The prominence of the office they 
occupy only brings out into the broadest contrast their 
Incompetence to represent the interests of their own 
people, much less advance the general prosperity of a 
commonwealth. 

All this is probably true and exactly the same thing is, 
true of the country's white politicians. 

But we are not here concerned with an evaluation of the 
Negroes as politicians further than to point out that they 
are not to be taken as representing in any true sense what 
Mr. DuBois has called the "Advance Guard of the Race," 1X 
any more than the white politicians are to be taken as rep- 
resenting the highest degree of the honesty, intelligence, 
and public spirit of the white community. The Negro poli- 
ticians are, however, a conspicuous group and, as such, have 
n selected here for analysis into their black and mixed 
elements. 

The race has been represented in the National Senate by 
two members — Hiram R. Revels and Blanche K. Bruce. The 
former was a Croatan Indian and the latter a mulatto. 

In the National House of Representatives, there have 
been twenty members of the Negro race, not more than three 

11 \V. E. B. DuBois, BookloveSs Magazine, Vol. 2, pp. 2-14. 






The Negro and tlie Mulatto in Pursuits 251 

of whom were Negroes of even approximately full blood. 
The Negro Year Book lists them as follows: 12 

Richard H. Cain S. C. 43rd and 45th Congress . . 4 years black 

H.P.Cheatham N. C. 52nd and 53rd Congress. 4 years mulatto 

R. C. Delarge S. C. 42nd Congress 2 years mulatto 

R. B. Elliott S. C. 42nd Congress 2 years mulatto 

J. Haralson Ala. 44th Congress 2 years black 

John Hyman N. C. 44th Congress 2 years mulatto 

J. M. Langston Va. 51st Congress 2 years mulatto 

Jefferson Long Ga. 41st Congress 2 years mulatto 

John R. Lynch Miss. 42nd, 44th & 47th Cong. 6 years mulatto 

T. H. Miller S. C. 51st Congress 2 years mulatto 

G. W. Murray S. C. 53rd and 54th Congress. 4 years black 18 

Charles E. Nash La. 44th Congress 2 years mulatto 

J. E. O'Harra N. C. 48th and 49th Congress . . 4 years mulatto 

J. H. Rainey S. C. 44th to 48th Congress . . 10 years mulatto 

A. J. Ransier S. C. 43rd Congress 2 years mulatto 

James T. Rapier Ala. 43rd Congress 2 years mulatto 

Robert Smalls S. C. 44th, 45th & 47th Cong . . 6 years mulatto 

B. S. Turner Ala. 42nd Congress 2 years mulatto 

Josiah T. Wall Fla. 42nd, 43rd & 44th Cong. 6 years mulatto 

George H. White N. C. 55th and 56th Congress. 4 years mulatto 

In 1869, Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett, 14 a man of mixed 
mulatto and Indian parentage, was appointed Resident Min- 
ister and Consul General to Haiti. He was the first Negro 
given an appointment by the Federal government. He held 
the position for eight years. 

During the Reconstruction regime in the South, several 

13 1914-1915, p. 151. 

"Shufeldt, not always reliable, is authority for the statement that 
Murray was a black man. Murray had a rather unsavory reputation 
having divorced his Negro wife and married a white woman. He was 
later convicted of forgery and sentenced to a three-year term in the 
penitentiary. "Every line of his cannon-ball head was modeled on 
African lines. His complexion is that of the ace of spades, and his 
features are of the pronounced negro type. . . ." R. W. Shufeldt, 
The Negro a Menace to American Civilization, p. 189. 

"Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 152. 



252 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Negroes attained the position of Lieutenant Governors. 
These men were as follows : 15 



Louisiana 

C. C. Antoine 
Oscar J. Dunn 
P. B. S. Pinchback 

South Carolina 
R. H. Gleaves 
Alonzo J. Ransier 

Mississippi 

Alexander K. Davis " 



mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 

mulatto 
mulatto 

mulatto 



John R. Lynch 17 in a recent volume 18 on the part played 
bv the Negro in the Reconstruction of the South, mentions 
nineteen men prominent during the period. Four of these 
men seem to have been black, and fifteen to have been men 
of mixed blood. The list follows : 



Son of Ex Senator Bruce mulatto 

Republican Convention of Miss. 1869 black 
Candidate for office, Miss. 1873 mulatto 

Proposed candidate for Lieut. Gov., 

Miss. 
Candidate for Lieut. Gov. of Miss. 

1873 
Politician 

State Senator of Miss. 
Pres. of Republican Club 
Candidate for Sec. of State of Miss. 
Baptist preacher and politician 
Methodist preacher. Political candi- 
date 
Signed bond for J. R. Lynch in 1869 mulatto 
Boliver Countv, Miss. mulatto 



Roscoe Bruce 
Rev. Noah Buchanan 
T. W. Cardoza 
H. C, Carter 

A. K. Davis 

Frederick Douglass 
Robert Gleed 
Sam Henry 
James Hill 
Hi P. Jacobs 
James Lynch 

William McCary 
I. T. Montgomery 

11 G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, p. 585. 

10 Davis was a candidate in 1873 but was not elected. Mr. Williams 
Is not the only Negro who lists him among the Negro Lieutenant Gov- 
ernors. See B. T. Washington, Frederick Douglass, pp. 279-80 

17 See pages 205, 208 above. 

u The Facts of Reconstruction. 9 



mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 



-A/ 

I 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 



253 



P. B. S. Pinchback 
H. R. Revels 

David Singleton 
T. W. Stringer 
J. M. P. Williams 
J. M. Wilson 



'Lieutenant Governor of Miss. 
United States Senator 

Signed a bond for Lynch in 1869 
State Senator, Mississippi 
Baptist preacher. Political candidate 
Member of Legislature, Mississippi 



mulatto 
Croatan 
Indian 
mulatto 
mulatto 
black 
black 



The Negro Year Book names four Negroes now holding 
federal offices. 19 These men are all mulattoes. They are: 

Charles W. Anderson mulatto 

Collector of Internal Revenue, New York City 
James A. Cobb mulatto 

Assistant District Attorney for the District of Columbia 
Charles Cottrell mulatto 

Collector of Customs, Honolulu, H. I. 
Robert H. Terrell mulatto 

Judge of Municipal Court, Washington, D. C. 

The Negro Year Book names two Negroes in the diplo- 
matic service of the United States. 20 One of these men is 
a Negro of pure blood and the other is a mulatto. They 
are: 



George W. Buckner 

Minister Resident and Consul General, Liberia 
Richard W. Bundy 

Secretary of Legation, Liberia 



mulatto 
black 



The Negro Year Book names eight Negroes in the con- 
sular service of the United States. 21 Two of these men are 
Negroes of pure blood and six are mulattoes. The list is 
as follows: 

James G. Carter mulatto 

Consul at Tamatave, Madagascar 
William H. Hunt 

Consul at Saint-fitienne, France 

18 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 152. 
*>Ibid., p. 153. 
21 Ibid., p. 153. 



mulatto 



254 The Mulatto in the United States 

George H. Jackson . mulatto 

Consul at Cognac, France 
James W. Johnson mulatto 

Consul at Corinto, Nicaragua 
I^emuel W. Livington black 

Consul at Cape Haitien, Haiti 
Christopher H. Payne mulatto 

Consul at St. Thomas, West Indies 
Herbert R. Wright black 

Consul at Puerto Cabello, Venezuela 
William J. Yerb mulatto 

Consul at Sierra Leone, West Africa 

The Negro Year Book names the following as the more 
important political positions held by Negroes during the 
presidential administration of William Howard Taft: 22 

J. N. W. Alexander mulatto 

Register of Land Office, Montgomery, Alabama 
G. W. Buckner mulatto 

U. S. Minister and Consul General to Liberia 
John E. Bush mulatto 

Receiver of Public Moneys, Little Rock, Arkansas 
Henry W. Furniss mulatto 

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, Port au 
Prince, Haiti 
George H. Jackson mulatto 

United States Consul to Cognac, France 
James W. Johnson mulatto 

United States Consul at CoTinto, Nicaragua 
Joseph Lee mulatto 

Collector of Internal Revenue for Florida 
William H. Lewis mulatto 

Assistant Attorney General 
Whitfield McKinley mulatto 

Collector of Customs, Port of Georgetown, D. C. 
Fred R. Moore mulatto 

United States Minister and Consul General to Liberia 
James C. Napier mulatto 

Register of the Treasury 



22 



Negro Yttar Book, 1914-1915, p. 27. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 255 

Robert Smalls mulatto 

Collector of Customs at Beaufort, S. C. 
R. H. Terrell mulatto 

Municipal Court of Washington, D. C. 
Ralph W. Tyler Indian and mulatto 

Auditor of the Navy 

In addition to the foregoing lists, an additional list of 
men, not heretofore mentioned, was compiled from all the 
available sources of information. It included, so far as it 
was possible to obtain them, the names of all men who are 
mentioned in the literature as having held elective or ap- 
pointive offices, or as otherwise having distinguished them- 
selves by political ability, or gained political prominence. 
After eliminating from the list thus compiled, the names 
of all men who have a better claim to distinction than the 
political one and who were consequently placed in other cate- 
gories, one hundred and fifty-two names remained. Of these, 
one hundred and thirty-seven were mulattoes ; and fifteen, 
so far as the evidence goes, seem to have been full-blooded 
Negroes. In tabular form, the facts stand as follows: 

Black Mulatto Total 



United States Senators 





2 


2 


United States Representatives 
Resident Minister to Haiti 


3 



17 
1 


20 
1 


Lieutenant Governors 23 





6 


6 


Reconstructionists 


4 


15 


19 


Federal Officials 





4 


4 


In Diplomatic Service 
In Consular Service 


1 

2 


1 
6 


2 
8 


Holders of Political Positions 





14 


14 


Miscellaneous 


15 


137 


152 


Totals 


25 


203 


228 


Names repeated 


3 


48 


51 


Corrected totals 


22 


155 


177 


"See note 16, p. 252 above. 









24 



256 The Mulatto in the United States 

It would appear from these facts that in the political life 
of the country — as measured by the relative amount of 
office holding — that the man of mixed blood is somewhat 
over seven times as successful as the full-blooded Negro. 
This, too, is on the principle of classifying as full-bloods, 
all Negroes where there seems to be any reason to doubt 
the fact of a mixed ancestry. 

The number of inventions by members of the Negro race 
is very small. 24 Scarcely half a dozen names are required 
to enumerate the whole list that the most liberal-minded 
would class as important. 25 The patent office makes no rec- 
ord of the race of the patentees, so that it is not possible to 
know the Negro inventors with any certainty or complete- 
ness. A list of alleged Negro inventors was furnished to 
the Paris Exposition in 1900. 26 The list contains two hun- 
dred and one separate names but in almost every case there 
is absolutely no information available concerning the men 
themselves. In all, information was obtained in regard to 
twenty-seven of the inventors listed. Of these four are said 
to be black and twenty-three are admittedly mulatto. The 
men whose ancestry it was possible to trace, with the inven- 
tion on which they received a patent, follows : 



Harry E. Baker, a mulatto clerk in the United States Patent Office, 
claims to have verified 800 patents granted to Negroes. He estimates 
that 400 others, unverified, have been granted. His plan of discovery 
and verification has been to circularize the patent attorneys, newspapers, 
"conspicuous citizens of both races," etc., on the subject. "The answers 
to this inquiry cover a wide range of guess work, many mere rumors 
and a large number of definite facts. These are all put through the 
test of comparison with the official record of the patent office. . . ." 
But even at the highest estimate that Mr. Baker claims for his race the 
number of inventors is pitifully small. H. E. Baker, The Colored 
Inventor. 

28 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, names sixteen, pp. 284 ff. 

M Reprinted in D. W. Culp's Twentieth Century Negro Literature. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 257 



L. C. Bailey 


Folding bed 




mulatto 


L. W. Benjamin 


Broom moistener 




mulatto 


Miss M. E. Benjamin 


Gong and Signal chairs 




mulatto 


L. Blue 


Hand corn shelling device 


mulatto 


Henry Brown 


Receptacle for storing 


papers 


mulatto 


Eugene Burkins 


Rapid-fire gun 




mulatto 


M. A. Cherry 


Velocipede 




mulatto 


J. S. Coolidge 


Harness attachment 




mulatto 


W. R. Davis 


Library table 




black 


J. H. Dickinson 


Piano player devices 




mulatto 


T. H. Edmonds 


Separating screens 




mulatto 


D. A. Fisher 


Joiner's clamp 




mulatto 


A. F. Hilyer 


Registers 




mulatto 


)W. A. Lavalette 


Early printing device, 


about 






1879 




mulatto 


F. J. Loudin 


Sash fastener 




mulatto 


J. E. Matzeliger 


Machine for attaching 


soles 






to shoes 




mulatto 


: E. McCoy 


Lubricators 




mulatto 


G. W. Murray 


Attachments for agricultural 






implements 




mulatto 


L. Nance 


Game apparatus 




black 


O'Connor 


Alarm for boilers 




black 


W. B. Purvis 


Paper bag machines 




mulatto 


E. P. Ray 


Dentist's Chair device 




mulatto 


H. H. Reynolds 


Safety gate for bridges 




mulatto 


E. H Sutton 


Cotton Cultivator 




black 


G. T. Woods 


Electrical appliances 




Australian" 


James Wormley 


Life saving apparatus 




mulatto 


P. B. Williams 


Electrical railway track switch mulatto 



In his pamphlet, 28 Mr. Baker names twelve additional 
Negro inventors. Concerning four of these, no informa- 
tion was obtained. The eight remaining, all of whom are 
mulattoes, are as follows: 



Benjamin Banneker 
W. Douglass 

Shelby Davidson 

31 See note 49, p. 195. 
** The Colored Inventor. 



Clock. Published almanac mulatto 
Harvesting machine attach- 
ments mulatto 
Tabulating device mulatto 



I 



258 The Mulatto in the United States 

James Doyle A mechanical server mulatto 

James Forton Device for managing sails mulatto 

R. Pelham Tabulating device mulatto 

C. V. Richey Register for telephone calls mulatto 

Lyates Woods Electrical appliances Australian 

The Negro Year Book 29 gives practically the same list. 
The only additional name is that of a free Negro of Mary- 
land, Henry Blair, who secured patents for a corn har- 
vester in 1834 and again in 1836. There is nothing stated 
and presumably nothing known concerning his color. The 
fact, however, that he was free at least gives the presump- 
tion that he was a man of mixed blood. 

During the past eighteen months, the Negro journals and 
papers have mentioned thirteen additional patents granted 
to Negroes. 30 Ten of these men are mulattoes, one a man 
of unmixed blood and two, while probably not full-blood, 
are very nearly so. 

Of the forty-eight inventors, then, of whom it was pos- 
sible to secure information — and the number seems to in- 
clude most of the important as well as most of the recent 
ones — forty-one are men of mixed blood and seven are either 
full black or nearly so. Nine of these men, however, have 
been mentioned in other connections. Of the thirty-nine 
new names, seven are of black Negroes and thirty-two of 
mulattoes — a ratio of nearly five to one. 31 The collected 
information falls into the following tabulation: 

20 1914-1915. See pp. 282 ff. 

30 For the eighteen months ending June, 1916. There may of course 
have been others that escaped notice. 

81 It is quite probable that if data were available concerning any large 
number of the Negro inventors of lesser note that this ratio of about 
one black man to five mulattoes would be maintained or the proportion 
of black men might even be increased. Minor inventions are very fre- 
quently if not generally the work of men in daily contact with the ma- 
chines they use and for which they invent improvements, 



Black Mulatto Total 


4 


23 


n 





8 


8 


3 


10 


13 


7 


41 


48 





9 


9 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 259 

Twentieth Century Negro Literature 
The Colored Inventor 
Miscellaneous 

Totals 

Names repeated 

Corrected totals 7 32 39 

The medical profession, more perhaps than any other 
in which Negroes are found, is made up of trained men. 
At least a certain minimum of training is required that a 
man be licensed to practice. The medical degree, even from 
the least reputable institutions, stands for something in the 
way of training. It is not an honorary degree, and legal 
provisions prevent the practice of medicine by men wholly 
untrained. 

The census of 1910 gave 3,777 as the number of Negro 
physicians in the United States. Of these a few have at- 
tained something more than local reputation. The Negro 
Year Book 32 mentions three of those who have "achieved 
national reputation" : Daniel H. Williams of Chicago, 
George C. Hall of Chicago, and A. M. Curtis of Washing- 
ton, D. C. All of these men are light-colored mulattoes. 

Dr. Kenney gives brief sketches of some sixty-eight Negro 
physicians. 33 While he distinctly states that there are hun- 
dreds of others "just as worthy and whose accomplishments 
are as brilliant as those selected," the list nevertheless con- 
tains most, at least, of the better-known Negro physicians. 
The list is as follows: 



A. W. Abbott 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


,W. G. Alexander 
32 1914-1915, p. 334. 


Orange, N. J. 


mulatto 







S3 



John A. Kenney, The Negro in Medicine. 



The Mulatto in the United States 



^UU J. no 

A. T. Augusta 


Virginia 


mulatto 


B. R Bluitt 


Dallas, Texas 


mulatto 84 


Robert F. Boyd 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Roscoe C. Brown 


Richmond, Va. 


mulatto 


L. L. Bur well 


Selma, Ala. 


mulatto 


H. R. Butler 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


George E. Cannon 


Jersey City, N. J. 


mulatto 


Simeon L. Carson 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


Rebecca J. Cole 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


S. E. Courtney 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 


A. M. Curtis 


Washington, D. C. 


U. G. Dailey 


Chicago, 111. 


John W. Darden 


Opelika, Ala. 


mulatto 36 


John DeGrasse 


New York City 


mulatto 


C. N. Dorsett 


Montgomery, Ala. 


mulatto 


A. W. Dumas 


Natchez, Miss. 


mulatto 


Chas. B. Dunbar 


New York and Liberia 


mulatto 


James Durham 


New Orleans, La. 


mulatto 


John C. Ferguson 


Virginia 


mulatto 


Joseph Ferguson 


Richmond, Va. 


mulatto 


Joseph J. France 


Portsmouth, Va. 


mulatto 3 " 


S. C. Fuller 


Westborough, Mass. 


mulatto 


H. F. Gamble 


Charleston, W. Va. 


mulatto 


C. N. Garland 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 


E. E. Green 


Macon, Ga. 


mulatto 


George C. Hall 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


John B. Hall 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 


R. T. Hamilton 


Dallas, Texas 


mulatto 


F. S. Hargrave 


Wilson, N. C. 


mulatto 


W. H. Higgins 


Providence, R. I. 


mulatto 


J. Seth Hills 


Jacksonville, Fla. 


mulatto 


E. C. Howard 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


John E. Hunter 


Lexington, Ky. 


mulatto 


A. B. Jackson 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


Peter A. Johnson 


New York City 


black 


A. D. Jones 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


Miles B. Jones 


Richmond, Va. 


black 


34 Called black by 


one authority. 




36 Darden is a dark brown man. One authority considers him a full- 


blood Negro. 






36 One authority \ 


writes that France is a "dark man 


but probably 


not pure Negro." 










The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 261 



John W. Jones 

John A. Kenney 

J. R. Levy 

A. C. McClennon 

David K. McDonough 

A. M. Moore 

N. F. Mossell 

John S. Outlaw 

Loring B. Palmer 

W. F. Penn 

C. B. Purvis 

Rapier 

Peter Williams Ray 

E. P. Roberts 
C. V. Roman 
David Rosell 
Chas. H. Shepard 
T. H. Slater 
James McCune Smith 
Willis E. Sterrs 

F. A. Stewart 
Tucker. 

A. M. Townsend 
John W. Walker 
L. P. Walton 
W. A. Warfield 
Daniel H. Williams 
James H. Wilson 
A. A. Wych 



Winston Salem, N. C. 
Tuskegee, Ala. 
Florence, S. C. 
Charleston, S. C. 
New York City 
Durham, N. C. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Los Angeles, Calif. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Washington, D. C. 
Washington, D. C. 
New York City 
New York City 
Nashville, Tenn. 
New York City 
Durham, N. C. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
New York City 
Montgomery, Ala. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Washington, D. C. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Asheville, N. C. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Washington, D. C. 
Chicago, 111. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Charlotte, N. C. 



mulatto 8T 

mulatto 

mulatto ss 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 



Of the sixty-eight names here presented, four are of full- 
blooded Negroes. The remaining sixty-four seem in all 
cases to be men of mixed blood. In five of these cases, the 
men are dark in color and one correspondent called each of 
them a full-blooded Negro. This, however, was not con- 
curred in, in any case, by the other authorities consulted. 
Consequently, they have been classed as men of mixed blood 
and attention called to the dissenting opinion. The list 

"Called full-blood by one authority. 

"A dark mulatto, sometimes called full-blood. 



t 



262 The Mulatto m the United States 

contains twenty-two names which have been mentioned iiif 
other connections. Omitting these, the list then stands : four 
Negroes of full-blood and forty-two mulattoes. Five of the 
latter number are brown or dark mulattoes. 

Dr. Kenny's list seems to be the most elaborate and ac- 
curate of any single discussion of the Negro physicians 
From various other sources, however, a considerably more 
extensive list was compiled. While it does not, perhaps, 
contain the names of so many men of first-rate ability and 
perhaps contains more names of men of second-rate ability; 
it is nevertheless made up of physicians of sufficient note 
or promise to gain mention in the literature dealing with the' 
Negro, or in the publications of the race. The men included 
seem in all cases to be of some prominence within the pro- 
fession and, consequently, leaders of some importance among 
the people. 

This compilation from miscellaneous sources includes the 
names of two hundred eight physicians not previously men- J 
tioned. Two hundred of these are men and eight are women.' 
Of the men eleven are black or nearly so, while one hundred 
and eight}r-nine are undoubtedly of mixed blood. Of the 
women, one is classed as black and seven are classed as mu- 
lattoes. Of the eleven men recorded as black it would not 
be safe to assert that more than one-half are men of un- 
mixed Negro blood ; but to all intent and purpose, twelve of 
the entire list are Negroes of full blood. 

There seems to have been made no special study which 
brings together a representative list of successful Negro den- 
tists, and no separate list is here presented. Several of the 
men discussed in the volume by Dr. Kenney are dentists, or 
practice dentistry in connection with their medical prac- 
tice. The same thing is true of many of the men in the list 
compiled from miscellaneous sources. 



, 






The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 263 

Omitting names of men which have been previously men- 
tioned in other connections, there remains a total of two 
hundred and fifty-four physicians and dentists who, if not 
in all cases the most prominent men in the professions, are 
at least representative men and, in all cases, men of some 
note in the professional circles of the Negro group. Of 
these men sixteen are either very dark mulattoes or full- 
blood Negroes, while two hundred and thirty-eight are per- 
sons of mixed blood. Among the leaders of these profes- 
sions, then, the ratio of mulattoes to Negroes of full blood 
appears to be approximately fifteen to one. The lists sum- 
marize as follows : 

MEN WOMEN 

Black Mul. Total. Black Mul. Total Totals 

68 
208 



Kenney: N. in Medicine 


4 


64 


68 











Miscellaneous 


11 


189 


200 


1 


7 


8 


Totals 


15 


253 


268 


1 


7 


8 


Names repeated 





22 


22 











Corrected totals 


15 


231 


246 


1 


7 


8 



276 

22 

254 

There seems to have been published no list of the promi- 
nent Negro law3 r ers. As a practitioner no Negro lawyer 
has made anything more than a minor and local reputa- 
tion. The exceptions that might be made to this statement 
would be in the case of men previously listed among the poli- 
ticians. Many of these men are lawyers by profession, in 
some cases by training, but their reputation in few, if any, 
cases rests upon their legal learning or successful practice. 
Their prominence is rather due to the conspicuous political 
offices they have held. 

Reference to the book and magazine literature and an 
examination of some thousand of Negro newspapers and 
magazines extending over a period of eighteen months, re- 



264 The Mulatto in the United States 






suited in a compilation of names of Negro lawyers of some u 
note who have not been mentioned previously. Classing as 
mulattoes only those who are conspicuously and unmistak- 
ably so, and as full-bloods, all black men as well as those 
where there could exist any reasonable doubt concerning 
the mixture of blood, it was found that the ratio of mu- 
lattoes to Negroes of pure blood was nine to one. Of the 
ninety-nine men in the list, ten were classed as black and 
eighty-nine as mulattoes. Of the latter group, four at 
least have some Indian as well as white blood in their ethnic 
composition. 

The teachers, more than any other professional group 
among the American Negroes, are representative of all that 
is best and most promising in the race. They are the men, 
somewhat superior in training and education, who are in inti- 
mate daily contact with the best minds among the youth of 
the race and by precept and example, endeavor to improve 
the intellectual and moral status of the race. The Negro 
teachers are, in general, persons of importance in the Negro 
group and enjoy a prestige which, aside from their profes- 
sional influence, makes them leaders among the people. It 
is, moreover, comparatively easy to select from the great 
number of teachers the men and women who are most prom- 
inent and presumably most influential in matters concerning 
the welfare of the race. 

Of the fifty-seven educational institutions listed in The 
Negro Year Book 39 under the head of Universities and Col- 
leges, twenty-six at least have white men as presidents. Of 
the remaining thirty-one, the presidents of twenty-six are 
mulattoes ; the presidents of three are black men. Whether 
the remaining two have white men, mulattoes, or black men 
as presidents was not determined. This list of Universi- 

89 1914-1915, pp. 246-47. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 265 

ties and Colleges excluding the institutions with white men 
at their heads is as follows : 



Allen University- 


W. W. Beckett 


mulatto 


Columbia, S. C. 






Arkansas Baptist College 


Joseph A. Booker 


black 


Little Rock, Ark. 






Bennett College 


J. E. Wallace 


mulatto 


Greensboro, N. C. 






Biddle University 


H. L. McCrorey 


mulatto 


Charlotte, N. C. 






Campbell College 


W. T. Vernon 


black 


Jackson, Miss. 






Central City College 


William E. Holmes 


mulatto 


Macon, Ga. 






Central Texas College 


J. W. Strong 


mulatto 


Waco, Texas 






Conroe College 


David Abner 


mulatto 


Conroe, Texas 






Edward Waters College 


John A. Grigg 


mulatto 


Jacksonville, Fla. 






Guadaloupe College 


D. J. Hull 




Seguin, Texas 






Houston College 


F. W. Gross 


black 


Houston, Texas 






Jackson College 


Z. T. Hubert 


mulatto 


Jackson, Miss. 






Kittrell College 


C. G. O'Kelley 


mulatto 


Kittrell, N. C. 






Lampton College 


M. M. Ponton 


mulatto 


Alexandria, La. 






Lane College 


J. F. Lane 


mulatto 


Jackson, Tenn. 






Livingstone College 


W. H. Goler 


mulatto 


Salisbury, N. C. 






Miles Memorial College 


G. A. Payne 


mulatto 


Birmingham, Ala. 






Morehouse College 


John Hope 


mulatto 


Atlanta, Ga. 






Morris Brown University 


W. A. Fountain 


mulatto 


Atlanta, Ga. 







?m 



The Mulatto m the United States 



Payne University 

Selma, Ala. 
Philander-Smith College 

Little Rock, Ark. 
Roger Williams University 

Nashville, Tenn. 
Samuel Huston College 

Austin, Texas 
Selma University 

Selma, Ala. 
Shorter College 

Argenta, Ark. 
State University 

Louisville, Ky. 
Va. Theol. Sem. & College 

Lynchburg, Va. 
University of West Tenn. 

Memphis, Tenn. 
Western University 

Quindaro, Kansas 
Wilber force University 

Wilberforce, Ohio 
Wiley University 

Marshall, Texas 

A number of these men have been mentioned in previous 
lists. Omitting these and the two whose ethnic composition 
is unknown, the new names are in sixteen cases of mulattoes 
and in one case that of a full-blooded Negro. 

In the sixteen institutions for women, 40 the president or 
principal in all cases except two seems to be a white man 
or woman. Miss M. M. Bethune, a dark mulatto, is at the 
head of the Daytona Training School for Girls at Daytona, 
Florida. Miss Nannie H. Burroughs, a mulatto woman, is 
at the head of the National Training School for Women and 
Girls at Washington, D. C. The former institution enrolls 
about three hundred pupils ; the latter, about one hundred. 41 



H. E. Archer 


mulatto 


J. M. Cox 


mulatto 


A. M. Townsend 


mulatto 


R. S. Lovingood 


mulatto 


M. W. Gilbert 

• 


mulatto 


O. L. Moody 




W. T. Amiger 


mulatto 


R. C. Woods 


mulatto 


M. V. Lynk 


mulatto 


H. T. Kealing 


mulatto 


W. S. Scarborough 


mulatto 


M. W. Dogan 


mulatto 



40 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 248. 

41 Ibid., p. 248. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 267 



The various schools of theology are for the most part 
conducted by white men. So far as known, those not con- 
ducted by white men are under the direction of mulattoes. 
In general, these schools of theology are in connection with 
one of the universities or colleges just listed. 42 

What is true of the theological schools and the institu- 
tions for women, is equally true of the professional schools 
of law, 43 medicine, 44 dentistry, 45 and pharmacy. 46 They 
are generally departments of the universities or colleges 
and, if not in charge of white men, seem in every case to be 
under the direction of men of mixed blood. It would seem 
that in no case is a black man in administrative charge of 
one of these schools. 

The State Agricultural and Mechanical Colleges, on the 
other hand, are for the most part under the presidency of 
men of the Negro race. Of the seventeen such schools listed 
in The Negro Year Book, 47 one has a white president, 48 
one a Negro president, and fourteen have mulatto presi- 
dents. Omitting the institution under the presidency of a 
white man, the list is as follows: 

Agricultural and Industrial State W. J. Hale mulatto 

Normal School 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Agr. and Median. College for the James B. Dudley mulatto 

Colored Race 

Greensboro, N. C. 
Agricultural and Mechanical Col- W. S. Buchanan mulatto 

lege for Negroes 
Normal, Ala. 

"Ibid., pp. 248-49. 

"Ibid., p. 250. 

44 Ibid., p. 250. 

46 Ibid., p. 250. 

46 Ibid., pp. 250-51. 

"Issue for 1914-1915, pp. 251-52. 

48 Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Va. 



268 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Alcorn Agr. and Mechanical Col- 
lege 

Alcorn, Miss. 
Branch Normal College 

Pine Bluff, Ark. 
Colored Agricultural and Normal 
University 

Langston, Okla. 
Colored Normal, Industrial and 
Mechanical College 
Orangeburg, S. C. 
Fla. Agr. and Mechan. College 
for Negroes 
Tallahassee, Fla. 
Ga. St. Ind. College 

Savannah, Ga. 
Ky. Normal and Industrial Insti- 
tute for Colored 
Frankfort, Ky. 
La. Agr. and Mechanical Col- 
lege 

Baton Rouge, La. 
Lincoln Institute 

Jefferson City, Mo. 
Md. Normal and Agricultural In- 
stitute 

Sandy Springs, Md. 
Prairie View State Normal and 
Industrial College 
Prairie View, Texas 
State College for Colored Stu- 
dents 

Dover, Del. 
West. Va. Colored Institute 
Institute, West Va. 



J. A. Martin 


mulatto 


F. T. Venegar 


black 


Inman E. Page 


mulatto 


R. S. Wilkinson 


mulatto 



Nathan B. Young 

Richard R. Wright 
G. P. Russell 



E. L. Blackshear 



W. C. Jason 



Byrd Prillerman 



mulatto 

Mandingo 
mulatto 



J. S. Clark 


mulatto 


B. F. Allen 


mulatto 


G. H. C. Williams 


mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



Three men in the above list have been previously men- 
tioned in other connections. Omitting these, there is men- 
tioned in this group thirteen new names, one of which is that 
of a pure-blooded Negro and twelve are names of men of 
mixed blood. 






The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 269 

It may be objected, however, that, inasmuch as an ad- 
ministrative position in a college or a university is a politi- 
cal position, the presidents and principals of schools are 
not fairly representative of the educational leadership. In 
a sense, this is true. There exists everywhere among the 
rank and file of the race and among a large percentage of 
the more enlightened classes, a prejudice against admitting 
mulatto superiority and a conscious policy of advancing 
black men to conspicuous figure-head positions simply be- 
cause of their color. Consequently, it may be well to look 
at the intellectual part of the teaching force as represented 
by the faculty membership. 

Tuskegee Institute, as the largest and best known of the 
Negro schools, may be taken as an example. The present 
principal is a black man. 49 The school has a teaching force 
of approximately two hundred. Of this number, nine, none 
of whom are in high positions, 50 are Negroes who generally 
pass as full-bloods. 51 One hundred and eighty-four are per- 
sons of mixed blood. 52 Of the nine full-blooded Negroes, 
one is a woman and eight are men. Of the one hundred and 

48 R. R. Moton. 

80 ". . . Indeed, I saw no one in high position at Tuskegee who would 
not, with a very small lightening of hue, have been taken without ques- 
tion for a white man. . . ." William Archer, Thro A fro- America, 
p. 108. 
61 G. W. Carver, Agriculture 
John H. Palmer, Registrar 
J. L. Whiting, Teacher of Mathematics 
F. L. West, Shoemaking 

R. S. Pompey, Assistant in Dairy Husbandry 
W. A. Tate, Swine Raising 
John W. Goiens, Clerk 
Willie M. Hendley, Matron 
W. M. Rakestraw, Negro Conference Agent 
"This analysis is on the basis of the faculty listed in the Annual 
Catalogue for 1909-1910. 



270 



The Mulatto in the United States 



eighty-four mulattoes, one hundred and sixteen are men and 
sixty-eight are women. 

From various miscellaneous sources, there was made a 
compilation of Negro teachers in various schools and col- || 
leges who are mentioned in the race literature as men of 
prominence and influence in the affairs of the race. After 
removing from this compilation the names of individuals 
included in other lists, there remained two hundred and 
sixty-three names. Again calling all black who are not ob- 
viously and noticeably of mixed blood and classifying the 
remainder as mulattoes there were found to be twenty-two 
black and two hundred and forty-one persons of mixed 
blood. Of those classified as black, six are men and six- 
teen are women. Of those classified as mulattoes one hun- 
dred and eighty-four are men and fifty-seven are women. 

The thing that is true in respect to the teachers in the 
schools and colleges, is true also of the student body. Ac- 
cording to The Negro Year Book, 53 the degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy has been conferred upon eleven Negroes by repu- 
table Universities. 54 In all cases, with possibly one excep- 
tion, the recipients were men of mixed blood. The list is 

as follows : 

Yale 1903 
Yale 1876 
Syracuse 1893 
111. Wesleyan 1906 
Harvard 1895 
Columbia 1912 
Pennsylvania 1896 
Pennsylvania 1898 
Chicago 1907 
Harvard 1912 
Pennsylvania 1911 



T. Nelson Baker 
Edward A. Bonchet 
William L. Bulkley 
J. R. L. Diggs 
W. E. B. DuBois 
George E. Haynes 
Lewis B. Moore 
Pezavia O'Connell 
C. H. Turner 
C. G. Woodson 
R. R. Wright, Jr. 



black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 



63 1914-1915, p. 231. 

M E. V. Just, a light mulatto, received the Ph.D. degree from the 
University of Chicago in 1916. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 271 

It has been pointed out already that the college grad- 
uates are for the most part individuals of mixed blood. Of 
the one hundred and fifty-seven pictured in certain copies of 
The Crisis examined, not above one-seventh can be classed 
as black even when all who are not conspicuously of mixed 
blood are placed in that category. 

In Chicago, the Negroes for the most part are segregated 
within the boundaries of one high school district. 55 Conse- 
quently, most of the Negro high school students in the city 
attend the one school and constitute about twenty per cent 
of its total enrollment. Enquiry concerning the relative 
number of mulattoes and pure-blooded Negroes enrolled, 
disclosed the startling fact that every Negro student in 
attendance was of the mixed-blood class. 56 

To obtain further information along this line, letters were 
addressed to administrative officers or teachers in the prin- 
cipal Negro schools bearing the name of college or univer- 
sity. Information was received in regard to twenty-five of 
the leading schools. Generally the information was accom- 
panied by the request that the name of the individual fur- 
nishing the information be not divulged. In most cases, the 
figures are based on estimation rather than on actual count. 
A tabulation of the data received gives the following: 

Black and Mulatto Students in Leading Negro Schools 

Enrolled Mulatto Black 



Arkansas Baptist College 


350 


315 


35 


Little Rock, Ark. 








Atlanta University 


430 


409 


21 


Atlanta, Ga. 








Benedict College 


700 


694 


6 


Columbia, S. C. 









"Wendell Phillips. 

"The date of this inquiry was 10-3-1916. 



272 The Mulatto in the United States 

Black and Mulatto Students in Leading Negro Schools 

(Continued) 

Enrolled Mulatto Black 

Chaflin University 

Orangeburg, S. C. 
Ingleside Seminary 

Burkeville, Va. 
Knoxville College 

Knoxville, Tenn. 
Lane College 

Jackson, Tenn. 
Lincoln University 

Lincoln Univ., Pa. 
Livingstone College 

Salisbury, N. C. 
Montgomery Industrial School 

Montgomery, Ala. 
Morgan College 

Baltimore, Md. 
National Training School for 
Women and Girls 

Washington, D. C. 
Paine University 

Augusta, Ga. 
Rust University 

Holly Springs, Miss. 
Scotia Seminary 

Concord, N. C. 
Selma University 

Selma, Ala. 
Shaw University 

Raleigh, N. C. 
Spelman Seminary 

Atlanta, Ga. 
Straight University 

New Orleans, La. 
Swift Memorial College 

Rogersville, Tenn. 



413 


241 


172 


126 


93 


35 


400 


300 


100 1 


300 


260 


40 


216 


156 


60 


289 


231 


58 


340 


300 


40 


312 


312 





100 


67 


33 


219 


182 


37 


260 


234 


26 


287 


275 


12 


483 


323 


160 


485 


395 


90 


703 


503 


200 


555 


421 


134 


205 


137 


68 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 273 

Black and Mulatto Students in Leading Negro Schools 

{Continued) 

Enrolled Mulatto Black 



Talladega College 


71 


67 


4 


Talladega, Ala. 








Tillosten College 


250 


190 


60 


Austin, Texas 








Walden University 


765 


695 


70 


Nashville, Tenn. 








Wilberforce University 


450 


394 


56 


Wilberforce, Ohio 








Wiley University 


463 


373 


90 


Marshall, Texas 









9,172 7,567 1,605 

The number of mulattoes to black Negroes in the student 
body of these schools stands thus, according to the informa- 
tion submitted, in the approximate ratio of five to one. This 
tabulation, however, can be taken as giving only an indica- 
tion of the facts. In only two cases are the figures based 
on an actual inquiry. One of these investigations showed 
the entire student body to be mulatto ; the other showed only 
six students out of a total of seven hundred who did not 
know of any mixture of blood. An accurate statement in 
the case of many of the other schools would reduce the num- 
ber reported as full-blooded almost, if not quite, to the van- 
ishing point and probably would reduce materially the pro- 
portion in the case of all. But the ratios as given may 
perhaps be taken as indicating the approximate numbers 
who are dark in color — say three-fourths or more Negro 
blood — and those who are so obviously of mixed blood as 
to permit of no question. 

Throwing the data in regard to the teachers and school 
officials who are not elsewhere mentioned into tabular form 
we have the following: 



274 The Mulatto in the United States 







MEN 






WOMEN 








Black 


Mul. 


Total Black 


Mul. 


Total Totals 


College Presidents 


3 


26 


29 











29 


Women Principals 














2 


2 


2 


Pres. Agr. & Ind. Col. 


1 


15 


16 











16 


Tuskegee Institute 


8 


116 


124 


1 


68 


69 


193 


Doctors of Philosophy- 


1 


11 


12 











12 


Miscellaneous 


16 


184 


200 


6 


57 


63 


263 


Totals 


29 


352 


381 


7 


127 


134 


515 


Names repeated 


2 


13 


15 











15 


Corrected totals 


27 


339 


366 


7 


127 


134 


500 



The Negro preachers on the average are not a particu- 
larly superior class of men. As a rule, they are uneducated 
and frequently are profoundly ignorant. 57 Morally they 
are perhaps inferior to any other group of professional men 
among the Negroes. 58 But aside from training, or native 
ability, or character, they are a conspicuous and influential 
group. The ignorant and immoral preacher, just as the one 
of character and training, is a leader among his people. 
The church, through its preachers, does more perhaps than 
any other institution except the lodge, to modify and di- 
rect the thinking and the acting of the race. The preacher, 
then, regardless of his training or character, must be taken 
as representing leadership among the Negroes. 

67 Not one in ten has so much as a high-school education according 
to a writer in the New York Age. See issue of 10-7-1915. Daniels, 
speaking of the Boston Negro preachers, says that "most of them are 
ignorant and incompetent floaters and hangers-on . . ." John Dan- 
iels, In Freedom's Birthplace, p. 248. 

68 Daniels considers that over 25 per cent of the Boston preachers 
"are patently lax in their morals, and the majority is not free from 
more or less suspicion." Ibid., p. 248. See, also, Archer, Thro 
A fro- America, p. 139, and C. H. Brough, "Work of the Commission 
of Southern Universities on the Race Question," Atlantic Congress, 
1913, p. 362. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 275 

Many of the Negroes who gained prominence prior to 
the emancipation did so through their preaching. The Ne- 
gro Year Booh 59 gives a list with brief biographical sketches 
of these "noted Negro preachers" prior to the Civil War. 
The list contains the names of sixteen men and one woman. 
Tradition has it that five of these men were full-blooded 
Negroes ; the evidence seems fairly conclusive that twelve 
of the number were men of mixed blood. Fifteen of the 
seventeen have been previously mentioned in other connec- 
tions. The two additional men are Jack, or Uncle Jack, 
and Joseph Willis. Jack was an itinerant preacher in Vir- 
ginia. "He was a full-blooded African and was licensed 
to preach in the Baptist Church." 60 Willis was a free Ne- 
gro in South Carolina. He "organized the first Baptist 
Church west of the Mississippi." 61 He was, probably, a 
mulatto. 

Among the present-day Negro clergy, the Bishops and 
the general officers of the principal religious denominations 
may perhaps be taken as typical of the Negro preacher at 
his best. 

The Negro Year Book 62 gives the Bishops of the Col- 
ored Methodist Episcopal Church as follows: 



R. A. Carter 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


N. C. Cleaves 


Jackson, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Elias Cottrell 


Holly Springs, Miss. 


mulatto 


L. H. Holsey 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


M. F. Jamison 


Leigh, Tex. 


mulatto 


Isaac Lane 


Jackson, Tenn. 


mulatto 


C. H. Phillips 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


G. W. Stewart 


Birmingham, Ala. 


mulatto 


R. S. Williams 


Augusta, Ga. 


mulatto 



69 Issue for 1914-1915, pp. 170-76. 
60 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 174. 
81 Ibid., p. 174. 
"Ibid., p. 179. 



276 



The Mulatto in the United States 



The General Officers of the Colored Methodist Episcopal 
Church are given as follows : 63 



J. A. Bray 


Birmingham, Ala. 


mulatto 


William Burrows 


Memphis, Tenn. 




A. R. Calhoun 


Pine Bluff, Ark. 


mulatto M 


John W. Gilbert 


Birmingham, Ala. 


mulatto 


J. A. Hamlett 


Jackson, Tenn. 


mulatto 


J. C. Martin 


Jackson, Tenn. 


mulatto 


J. H. Moore 


Pine Bluff, Tenn. 


mulatto 


L. E. Rosser 


Jackson, Tenn. 




J. C. Stanton 


Pittsobo, N. Car. 


mulatto 


J. R. Starks 


Sedalia, Mo. 


mulatto 


R. S. Stout 


Pine Bluff, Ark. 


mulatto 


The Bishops 


of the African Methodist 


Episcopal Church 


are as follows : < 


55 




W. D. Chappelle 


Columbia, S. C. 


mulatto 


James M. Conner 


Little Rock, Ark. 


black M 


L. J. Coppin 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


J. S. Flipper 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


W. H. Heard 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


John Hurst 


Baltimore, Md. 


mulatto 


J. Albert Johnson 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


Joshua M. Jones 


Wilberforce, Ohio 


mulatto 


B. F. Lee 


Wilber force, Ohio 


mulatto 


H. B. Parks 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 
and Indian 


C. T. Shaffer 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


C. S. Smith 


Detroit, Mich. 


mulatto 


B. T. Tanner 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


H. M. Turner 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


Evans Tyree 


Nashville, Tenn. 


black ■ 



The list of general officers of the African Methodist Epis- 
copal Church is as follows : 68 

"Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 179. 

64 One correspondent called Calhoun a full-blood Negro. 

"Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 180. 

88 Conner is himself authority for this classification. 

m Generally so considered. 

"Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 180, 



L > 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 



277 



G. W. Allen 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


[ra T. Bryant 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


J. C. Caldwell 


Nashville, Tenn. 


black 69 


J. R. Hawkins 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


A.. S. Jackson 


Waco, Texas 


mulatto 


J. T. Janifer 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


J. I. Lowe 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


black 


T. Frank McDonald 


Kansas City, Mo. 


mulatto 


J. W. Rankin 


New York City 


mulatto T0 


R. C. Ransom 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


B. F. Watson 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


El. R. Wright, Jr. 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


The Bishops of the 


African Methodist 


Episcopal Zio 


Church are as follows: 


71 


, 


F. W. Alstor 


Montgomery, Ala. 


mulatto 


3. L. Blackwell 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 72 


F. S. Caldwell 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


3. W. Clinton 


Charlotte, N. C. 


black 


Z. R. Harris 


Salisbury, N. C. 


mulatto 


T. W. Hood 


Fayetteville, N. C. 


mulatto 


Alexander Walters 


New York City 


mulatto 


A. J. Warner 


Charlotte, N. C. 


black 



Below are listed the general officers of the African Meth- 
odist Episcopal Zion Church: 73 



Winston-Salem, N. C. 
Charlotte, N. C. 
Pensacola, Fla. 
Charlotte, N. C. 



mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 7S 
mulatto 



•J. G. Atkins 
Frank K. Bird 74 
Aaron Brown 
Gr. C. Clement 

69 This may be open to question. See photograph in A. M. E. Church 
Review, Jan. 1916, p. 182. 

70 All authorities agree in calling Rankin a mulatto. His photo- 
graphs show a man of rather typical Negro features. See, for exam- 
ple, the A. M. E. Church Review, Jan. 1916, p. 177. 

71 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 181. 

73 One authority called Blackwell a full-blooded Negro. 
78 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 181. 
Ti Deceased. 
78 A dark man. 



278 



The Mulatto in the United States 



J. C. Dancy 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


W. H. Goler 


Salisbury, N. C. 


mulatto 


J. S. Jackson 


Birmingham, Ala. 


mulatto 


L. W. Kyles 


Mobile, Ala. 


mulatto 


M. D. Lee 


Rock Hill, S. C. 


mulatto 76 


John F. Moreland 


Charlotte, N. C. 


mulatto 


T. W. Wallace 


East St. Louis, 111. 


mulatto 


J. W. Wood 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 



The only Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church is 
Isaac B. Scott 77 of Monrovia, Liberia. Scott is a mulatto. 

The general officers of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
are as follows : 78 



J. N. C. Coggins 


Topeka, Kan. 


mulatto 


M. S. Davage 


New Orleans, La. 


mulatto 


Samuel D. Ferguson 


Cape Palmas, West Africa 


mulatto 


C. C. o acobs 


Sumter, S. C. 


mulatto 


E. M. Jones 


Montgomery, Ala. 


mulatto 


Robert E. Jones 


New Orleans, La. 


mulatto 


W. W. Lucas 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


George W. Moore 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


I. G. Penn 


Cincinnati, O. 


mulatto 


I. L. Thomas 


Baltimore, Md. 


mulatto 


S. N. Vass 


Raleigh, N. C. 


mulatto 


J. P. Wragg 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 



The officers of the National Baptist Convention are as 
follows : 79 



S. W. Bacote 

R. H. Boyd 

Miss N. H. Burroughs 

A. A. Cosey 

S. E. Griggs 

R. B. Hudson 

E. W. D. Isaac 



Kansas City, Mo. mulatto 

Nashville, Tenn. mulatto 

Washington, D. C. mulatto 

Mound Bayou, Miss. \\<fs mulatto 

Memphis, Tenn. mulatto 

Selma, Ala. mulatto 

Nashville, Tenn. mulatto 



16 One authority considered Lee a full-blood Negro. 
Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 182. 



77 



n Ibid., pp. 182-83. 
, P- 



79 Ibid., p. 182. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 279 



L. G. Jordan 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


Robert Mitchell 


Bowling Green, Ky. 


mulatto 


E. C. Morris 


Helena, Ark. 


mulatto 


W. G. Parks 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


A. J. Stokes 


Montgomery, Ala. 


mulatto 



Connecticut 


mulatto 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


New Jersey 


mulatto 


New York City 


mulatto 


New Jersey 


mulatto 



The list of officers of the New England Baptist Conven- 
tion is as follows : 80 

W. A. Harrod, Cor. Sec'y 
W. Bishop Johnson, President 
W. P. Lawrence, Vice-President 
Holland Powell, Rec. Sec. 
Robert D. Wynn, Treasurer 

A summary of the preachers and church officials thus far 
mentioned follows : 

Noted early preachers 
Bishops C. M. E. Church 
Gen. Officers C. M. E. Church 
Bishops A. M. Church 
Gen. Officers A. M. E. Church 
Bishops A. M. E. Z. Church 
Gen. Officers A. M. E. Z. Church 
Bishops M. E. Church 
Gen. Officers M. E. Church 
Officers Nat. Bap. Conv. 
Officers New Eng. Bap. Conv. 

Totals 

Names repeated 

Corrected totals 5 50 2 57 

The two Negro officers 81 of the Episcopal Workers 
Among the Colored People are both mulattoes. 82 The Ne- 



Black 


Mulatto I 


Jnknow 


n Total 


5 


12 





17 





9 





9 





9 


2 


11 


2 


13 





15 


2 


10 





12 


2 


6 





8 





12 





12 





1 





1 





12 





12 





12 





12 





5 





5 


11 


101 


2 


114 


6 


51 





57 



80 Ibid., p. 182. 

81 Ibid., p. 182. 



H. B. Delaney, President, and G. F. Bragg, Secretary. 



280 The Mulatto in the United States 

gro members of the Executive Committee of the Interna- 
tional Sunday School Association already have appeared in 
other connections in the previous lists. The six Negro 
priests in the Catholic Church 83 so far as known are mu- 
lattoes. Father Augustus Tolton of Chicago, the first Ne- 
gro Priest in the United States, 84 was a dark man of mixed 
blood. Father Raphard 8:> of Philadelphia, the one Negro 
Priest in the Greek Catholic Church, 86 is a dark man, but 
not a full-blooded Negro. The Oblates of Providence, 87 a 
Catholic Sisterhood, was founded by Father Joubert, a Sul- 
pician Priest, in 1829. The four young women who com- 
posed its original membership were mulattoes. 88 The 
founders, under the direction of Father Rousselon, of the 
Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family, were four 
"free women of color." All seem to have been mulattoes. 89 
The Knights of Peter Klaver was founded by three white 
men and four Negroes. Three of the Negroes were mulat- 
toes, the other of unknown ancestry. Among the Interna- 
tional Secretaries of the Y. M. C. A. are six Negroes. 90 Four 
of these are known to be mulattoes and two are unknown. 

Among these minor organizations of a religious or semi- 
religious sort, then, there is mentioned but one man of pre- 
sumably pure Negro blood though there are several who are 
unknown. 

A summary of the organizations previously mentioned is 
as follows : 

83 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 182. 

84 Died 1913. 

85 Rev. Robert Morgan. 

89 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, pp. 183-84. 

87 Ibid., p. 184. 

88 Catholic Encyclopaedia. 

89 Ibid. 

90 Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 187. 






The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 281 






2 








1 


s 


1 


2 








s 


s 





1 









4 








3 


1 





4 


2 



Black Mulatto Unknown 

Officers, Episcopal Workers among 
the C. P. 

Afro-American Presbyterian Council 

N. Members, Intern. S. S. Association 

Negro Priests, Catholic Church 

Negro Priest, Greek Catholic Church 

Charter Members, Oblates of Provi- 
dence 4 

Charter Members, Sisters of the H. 
Family 

Knights of Peter Claver 

Y.M.C.A. International Secretaries 

Totals 1 24 9 

The foregoing lists of church bishops and other officials 
and functionaries would seem to be a fairly comprehensive 
and representative representation of the leadership among 
the various churches and church organizations. A sugges- 
tion as to the racial ancestry of the rank and file of the 
Negro ministry is given by the photographs in the books, 
magazines, and papers of the race. No class among the 
Negroes advertise themselves with more persistency and 
shamelessness than do the preachers. Almost every issue 
of almost every Negro publication has from one to a dozen 
or twenty photographic reproductions of preachers who 
have delivered, or are about to deliver, some masterpiece of 
pulpit oratory. The current publications of the race, there- 
fore, furnished a rather rich assortment of Negro divines. 
A compilation of Negro preachers from these current pub- 
lications and from the literature generally was made and 
classified as in preceding cases. The tabulation included 
in all four hundred and ninety-five names. Of these eight 
were of women and four hundred and eighty-seven were of 



282 The Mulatto in the United States 

men. Eighty-six of the men and three of the women were 
dark Negroes though not in all cases full-blooded. Four 
hundred and one of the men and five of the women were 
mulattoes. 

This study has brought together the names of six hun- 
dred and forty-three members of the Negro ministry. Six 
hundred and thirty-five of them are men. Ninety-eight of 
these are of men who are, or for social purposes may be 
considered to be, full-blooded Negroes. Five hundred and 
twenty-six are men who are obviously of mixed blood. There 
are eight women, of whom three are black and five are mu- 
lattoes. Nine of the individuals listed are of unknown an- 
cestry. The ratio of mulattoes to blacks among the edu- 
cated and the better known members of the Negro ministry 
thus stands between five and six to one. When the names 
previously mentioned are removed there remain the names 
of five hundred and eighty persons. Ninety-five of these 
are considered as full-bloods and four hundred and eighty- 
five are known to be mulattoes. The ratio here stands 
slightly over five to one. 

In literature, the Negro has as yet produced little, if 
anything, of permanent value. Much has been attempted 
and in many lines, but little, if any, first-class work has 
appeared so far. 

In poetry and fiction, with rare exceptions, the Negroes 
who have published works have been men ashamed of their 
own race and who have assimilated but imperfectly the white 
man's civilization. The works have been imitations of the 
white man, an attempt to give artistic expression to a life 
that the writers did not share and but imperfectly under- 
stood. Ashamed of the black man, and frequently unac- 
quainted with him, the Negro writers have been unable, 
or unwilling, to give expression to real Negro life. The 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 288 

effort has been made to present the Negro as a white man 
with a colored skin. 91 In fiction, as in life, the effort to 
make a white man of a Negro has failed. As a result of 
the failure on the part of the writers to understand either 
the Negroes or the white people, the Negro in literature has 
been a creation that is like neither the one nor the other. 
Aside from the slight work of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a 
frank interpretation of Negro life and Negro character by 
a Negro who knows his people and is not ashamed of them 
is yet to be written. 

In other forms of writing, the Negro has been handi- 
capped by a lack of training. Few Negroes are trained 
men. A dozen names include all the men of the race who 
have received a first-class university training. Even the 
number of college graduates is very small, and most of 
these are from so-called colleges or universities which are 
generally not prepared either in equipment or faculty to 
give a first-class high school training. The graduates of 
the best of these "Universities" at most are trained in two 
years of college work. Consequently little is to be expected 
of the Negro in a scholarly way — the surprise is that there 
has been anything. Of real scientific study by Negroes, 
there has been almost nothing ; of first-class historical study, 
very little. On the Negro question, to the discussion of 
which the Negroes have contributed more in volume than to 
any other question, no Negro as yet has been able to give 
an unbiased, objective statement. 

The only attempt worthy of any serious consideration, 
by a member of the race, to evaluate the writing of Negroes 
is that of G. B. Brawley. In a small volume published in 



91 



The Negroes in fiction seem always to be mixed-bloods, octoroons 
or near-white, and only the rough and despicable and pitiable charac- 
ters are black. * 






284 The Mulatto in the United States 

1910, 92 he says 93 that he has attempted 

... to test in the light of critical principles th< 
literature so far produced by the Negro people oi 
America, and to review their achievement in every de- 
partment of the fine arts. Much that has been writ- 
ten on the Negro Problem, while it may have some value 
in the search for truth, is, from the standpoint of po- 
lite literature, absolutely worthless ; so that compara- 
tively little of the writing on this large subject has beer 
considered. 

He discusses the work of five writers of the race who have 
more or less claim to consideration as writers of literature. 
Two of these, Phyllis Wheatley Peters and Paul Laurence 
Dunbar, were pure-blooded Negroes. The other three: C. W. 
Chestnutt, W. E. B. DuBois and W. S. Braithwaite, are 
men of mixed blood. All of these persons have been men- 
tioned in other connections in this or the preceding chapters. 

These persons, according to Mr. Brawley, compose the 
list of Negroes who have produced anything in the way of 
literature. In a further chapter 94 on "Other Writers," 
whilst making no claim that they have produced any litera- 
ture, he mentions nineteen other writers with more or less 
claim to note. Three of these seem to be white persons, 95 
two to be black or nearly so, and fourteen to be persons of 
mixed blood. All these persons, with the exception of Inez 
C. Parker, an imitator of Dunbar, and Mrs. A. E. John- 
son, the author of a Sunday School book, have been included 
in one or more of the preceding lists. Both these women 
seem to be mulattoes. 

In this connection, perhaps, should be mentioned The Jour- 

82 The Negro in Literature and Art. 

83 Preface. 

84 Chapter VII, pp. 35-38. 

86 William C. Frost, H. B. Frissell and Lidia Marie Childs. 



Atlanta 


mulatto 


Washington 


mulatto 


Chicago 


mulatto 


Washington 


mulatto 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 285 

nal of Negro History, the first issue of which appeared in 
January, 1916. It is almost exclusively the work of white 
men and women and mulattoes. The Executive council and 
list of associate editors as announced in the first issue in- 
cluded the names of eleven Negroes, ten of whom are mu- 
lattoes. Omitting the names of white persons connected 
with the publication and also the names of Negroes included 
in other compilations, four names remain. These men are: 

J. A. Bigham 
Walter Dyson 
A. D. Jackson 
G. C. Wilkinson 

In a pamphlet reprinted from the Fourteenth Report of 
the Atlanta Conference, under the title Negro Literature, 
are mentioned some sixty-five names exclusive of the white 
persons included apparently by mistake. Forty-three of 
these names have been mentioned in other connections. Of 
the names remaining, twelve are of mulattoes and ten are 
names or pseudonyms of individuals concerning whom there 
is nothing known. Of the total number, five seem to have 
been black. 96 The others so far as known were mulattoes. 

A further compilation of the names of Negro writers 
mentioned in the literature includes almost every Negro who 
has risen to any prominence. 97 But in relatively few cases 
does their best claim to distinction rest upon their published 
works. They have in most cases, therefore, been included 
in other divisions of this chapter or in the preceding chap- 
ters. There still remain, however, the names' of forty-nine 

9a Wheatley, Dunbar, Sinclair, Miller and Crummell. 

87 ". . . A list of 2,200 negro authors was once compiled by the Li- 
brary of Congress and investigation showed that with very few ex- 
ceptions these Negro authors came from the mixed stock." C. A. Ell- 
wood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, p. 206. 



286 The Mulatto in the United States 

individuals who have published works of more or less im- 
portance and who are not elsewhere mentioned. Adding to 
these the two mentioned by Brawley, four men on the Edi- 
torial Staff of The Journal of Negro History and twelve 
from the pamphlet on Negro Literature, we have a total of 
sixty-seven names of individuals whose reputations rest 
wholly or in part on their ability as literary artists, and who 
have not been mentioned elsewhere in these chapters. Fifty- 
nine of these are names of men, and eight are names of 
women. All the women are mulattoes. Four of the men 
are full-blooded Negroes, while the remaining fifty-five are 
mulattoes. Of the total sixty-seven, four are pure Negroes 
and sixty-three are of mixed ancestry — a ratio of nearly 
sixteen to one. 

In the field of Negro journalism, new ventures are made 
almost every week and old ventures fail with almost equal 
frequency. Most of the journals have a short and not very 
prosperous existence. Of the thousands of such ventures 
since John B. Russwurm started The Journal of Freedom 
in 1827, there was, in 1914, a total of four hundred and fifty 
being published. 98 

A list was made of the more important of these journals 
and their editors taken as representing one phase of leader- 
ship. A goodly number of these men are editors only inci- 
dentally and have been mentioned in other connections. 
Eighty-eight, however, have not been included elsewhere. Of 
this list, seven — all mulattoes — are women. Eighty-one are 
men, twelve of whom are black men and sixty-nine, mulat- 
toes. Of the eighty-eight, seventy-six are mulattoes and 
twelve are black — a ratio of something over six to one. 

In the field of artistic and semi-artistic endeavor, the 
Negro is almost unrepresented. The few individuals who 

"Negro Year Book, 1914-1915, p. 373. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 28 ^ 

have made success already have been mentioned in other con- 
nections. H. O. Tanner in painting and Meta Vaux War- 
rick " in sculpture are the most conspicuous examples of 
artistic success. Both these persons are of mixed blood; 

(Tanner is light and Miss Warrick dark. E. M. Bannister, 
a New England mulatto, was perhaps the first Negro to 
succeed as an artist. Brawley 10 ° mentions William A. Har- 
per, a mulatto of Chicago, as among the more promising of 
the younger painters. As sculptors of success or promise 
should be mentioned Edmonia Lewis and Bertina Lee. 
Both are mulattoes. In addition to these six names men- 
tioned by Brawley as worthy of serious consideration, men- 
tion was made in the literature of five other painters of 
some note who have not been mentioned elsewhere. In each 
of these cases, the individuals are mulatto men. Five of the 
six names mentioned by Brawley have been mentioned else- 
where. 

On the stage, in competition with the performers of the 
white race and playing before audiences of white people, 
very few Negroes have been able to make even a tolerable 
success. Whether due to a peculiarly difficult apprentice- 
ship through which the Negro with stage ambitions must 
pass 101 or to a relative absence from the race of any his- 
trionic ability of a high order, 102 the number of Negro 
stage celebrities is very small. The drama has had no con- 
siderable following among the race, and the productions de- 
pending upon race patronage for support generally have 
not been of a high order of merit. Brawley 103 names Ira 

"Mrs. S. C. Fuller. 

100 j<j ie jy e g ro i n Literature and Art, p. 44. 

101 Brawley, The Negro in Literature and Art, p. 39. 

102 P. A. Bruce, "Race Segregation in the United States," The Hib- 
bert Journal, Vol. 13, p. 877. 

10 *The Negro in Literature and Art, pp. 39 ff. 



288 The Mulatto in the United States 

Aldridge as the one Negro who succeeded in the legitimate 
drama. Aldridge was a mulatto. In musical comedy, he 
names Bert A. Williams and Aida Overton Walker as the 
most successful. Both are mulattoes. 

From various other sources, a compilation was made of 
the more popular Negro players. 104 Excluding names pre- 
viously mentioned, the list contained the names of one hun- 
dred and thirteen men and women with more or less claim 
to distinction. Fifty-nine of these names were of women, 
and fifty-four were of men. Four of the women and four of 
the men are dark-colored Negroes of approximately full 
blood. Fifty-five of the women and fifty of the men are ob- 
viously mulattoes, in a large per cent of cases very light- 
colored mulattoes. Of the total number, one hundred and 
thirteen, one hundred and five are mulattoes and eight are 
Negroes of pure or nearly pure blood, a ratio somewhat over 
thirteen to one. Most of the more talented and better- 
known Negro actors have been mentioned in other compila- 
tions, and so are excluded from this summary. They are 
in every case persons of mixed blood. To include them in 
the summary would slightly raise the proportion of mulat- 
toes. 

Several Negroes have been more or less justly famed for 
their ability as orators. Brawley 105 names Frederick 
Douglass, J. C. Price, and Booker T. Washington as the 
most conspicuous. Price was a black man; the other two 
were mulattoes. Oratory, however, is an abdominal rather 
than cerebral exercise, so there seemed no reason for mak- 
ing a special category to include men gifted in this way. 
Such men, in case they seemed to be of some consequence, 

1M A few readers not elsewhere mentioned are included in this com- 
pilation. 

186 The Negro in Literature and Art, pp. 41-42. 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits £89 

iave been placed in other lists. 

The plantation melodies were the Negro's first efforts in 
, musical way and his reputation for music rests for the 
aost part upon this crude, primitive music. These melo- 
lies seem to be distinctly an American product — the Afri- 
an had no music — and largely a product of the latter days 
if slavery. They express in a simple way the joys and sor- 
ows of an untutored people. It was in the rendition of this 
ausic that the Negro excelled. The words are of unknown 
>rigin and of no literary value, generally without sense. The 
)lantation melodies were very close to wordless music. 

Later the Negroes adopted and sometimes adapted the 
imple church hymns; they sometimes excel in the produc- 
ion of this sort of music. A relatively small and untrained 
congregation frequently is able to produce effective church 
nusic. The "coon songs" so far as composition was con- 
cerned were largely the work of white men. In "rag time" 
;he Negro had a minor part though the assertion that it 
s a racial product has about the same claim to credence 
is has the claim that it is music. 

However the Negro already has done something in a mu- 
ical way. "There are scattered indications," says Kelly 
Miller, 106 "that the Negro possesses ambition and capacity 
r or high-grade classical music." A few vocalists have ap- 
peared whose reputation rests upon something more than 
he prestige of color. 107 A small number have a musical 
education, several are successful writers of popular songs, 
vhile others have made some reputation as performers. But 
m the whole, it must be recognized that the Negro in music 

109 Race Adjustment, p. 241. 

""There is a popular myth more or less current in both the races that 
he Negro is a natural musician and the audience finds in the most 
barbarous performance by Negro talent the thing for which their 
^repossessions call. 



290 The Mulatto in the United States 

is a promise rather than a reality. 108 

No critical study apparently has been made of the Ne- 
gro musicians, and no compilation of any considerable num- 
ber of the leading ones. Johnson 109 names seven composers, 
performers, or teachers of music. Brawley mentions twen- 
ty-four 110 who have made some success in a musical w T ay. 
Elsewhere throughout the literature, other individuals oi 
talent or promise are mentioned. From the various sources, 
a compilation was made without an attempt on the part oi 
the present writer to evaluate the compositions, the voca": 
power, or the technical skill of the persons mentioned. The 
miscellaneous list thus secured included in all, exclusive oi 
those mentioned elsewhere in this study, the names of one hun- 
dred and seventy-one musicians and composers. One hundrec 
and ten of these are names of men and sixty-one are names 
of women. Of the men one hundred were mulattoes and ter 
were black men. Of the women, three were found to be blact 
and fifty-eight to be mulattoes. Of the one hundred anc 
seventy-one, one hundred and fifty-eight are mulattoes anc 
thirteen are Negroes of full blood. This is on the basis oi 
classing as full-blooded all individuals who are approxi- 
mately so. This is a ratio of slightly over twelve to one. 

A recapitulation of the various lists of men and womer 
whose ethnic composition has been analyzed in this chapter 
shows a total of 2,129 names. Of these, 1,844 are names 
of men and 285 are names of women. The 1,844 men divide 

108 No account is here taken of the indecent songs as they are foi 
the most part unwritten. For their number and variety and for the 
extent to which they are generally known by the children as well a* 
by the men of the race, as well as for their minutely detailed vul- 
garity and lascivious indecency they are perhaps not equaled by the 
lewd literature of any people. 

109 James W. Johnson, "The Negro of To-day in Music," Charities 
Vol. 15, pp. 58-59. 

The Negro in Literature and Art, pp. 53 ff. 



110 



The Negro and the Mulatto in Pursuits 291 



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292 The Mulatto in the United States 

into 206 Negroes of pure or nearly pure blood and 1,638 
of mixed blood. The 285 women divided into 18 pure and 
267 of mixed blood. The total number of black Negroes 
is 224; the total number of mulattoes is 1,905. The ratio 
of mulattoes to Negroes of full blood is slightly more than 
eight and one-half to one. The relationship existing in the 
different groups is best shown in the tabulation (see p. 291). 



CHAPTER XI 

THE NEGRO AND THE MULATTO IN BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY 

IN the business and economic world, the Negro has not 
as yet been able to enter into successful competition 
with other more energetic and commercially-minded peoples. 
The half-century since the Emancipation has seen the race 
crowded out, little by little, from many of the occupations 
in which it formerly held a virtual monopoly. 

There are, however, numerous instances of Negroes who 
have made a success in a larger or smaller way in the busi- 
ness life of the community. Where the Negro has been suf- 
ficiently isolated from competition with other peoples, indi- 
viduals have been able to build up successful business enter- 
prises. In general, this has been by building up a business 
within the race, though there are numerous instances of 
successful business enterprises that do not depend entirely 
upon race patronage. In fact, the United States Census 
figures seem to bear out the statement 1 that there is little 
possibility of a Negro business man making a living solely 
from the patronage of the race. Two-thirds of his patron- 
age must be white in order for him to succeed. The accu- 
racy of such a generalization varies with the section of the 
country and the nature of the business enterprise. 

Booker T. Washington has brought together a large 
group of inconspicuous Negroes who have made some de- 

1 The Colored People of Chicago: An Investigation Made for the 
Juvenile Protective Association, 1913. 

293 



294 The Mulatto in the United States 

gree of success in the business or industrial world. 2 The 
group includes fanners, grocers, barbers, and men of that 
general type. The men mentioned, then, are, for the most 
part, of no particular individual concern, but as a whole 
they represent what is best and most prosperous among the 
Negro middle-class group. To attempt to find the racial 
ancestry of many of these men would require an amount 
of work out of all proportion to the significance of the find- 
ings. No attempt has been made, therefore, to make the in- 
formation concerning this group of men complete. Consid- 
erably over half the number, including all the more con- 
spicuous ones, have been determined and the findings given 
for what they may be worth. There is no reason to believe 
that the relative ratios of blacks and mulattoes would be 
materially altered, if the data were brought to complete- 
ness. 

The total list of men and women mentioned in the volume 
contains the names of some persons previously mentioned I 
in other connections and a larger number, including nearly 
all of any real importance, will appear in a later and more 
representative list. 3 The list of names, therefore, is not 
reproduced here, but a summary is given showing the dis- 
tribution into mulattoes and full-blooded Negroes of those 
not elsewhere mentioned. This list includes the names of 
twenty-three women and one hundred and thirty-five men. 
Of the men, eleven seem to be black and one hundred and 
twenty- four are mulattoes. Twenty-two of the women are 
mulattoes and one seems to be a full-blooded Negress. Of 
the one hundred and fifty-eight individuals, twelve are 
classed as black and one hundred and forty-six are mulat- 
toes. The ratio of mulattoes to blacks in this list is slightly 

2 The Negro in Business. 
8 Pages 298 ff. below. 



Negro and Mulatto in Business and Industry £95 

over twelve to one. 

Of the successful business enterprises carried on by Ne- 
groes, the most conspicuous, perhaps, are the Negro banks. 
These institutions in most cases are small but their presi- 
dents form, if not the best, at least the most conspicuous, 
class of successful men in the Negro business world. They 
are the business aristocracy. For this reason, the group 
of Negro bankers has been selected for analysis into the 
black and mixed elements for the light that it may give in 
determining the relative success of these elements in the 
economic and commercial life of the community. 

The Negro Year Book 4 gives the list of Negro banks and, 
where known, their presidents. The total list includes the 
names of fifty-eight separate institutions. In seven cases, 
the president of the institution is not given. Of the fifty- 
one presidents named, the ancestry of twelve was not de- 
termined. Of the thirty-nine institutions whose presidents 
are known, four seem to be black men and thirty-five mulat- 
toes, a ratio of about nine to one. Seventeen of the fifty- 
one have been mentioned in other connections. Of the seven- 
teen previously mentioned, all are mulattoes. The list of 
banks, omitting those whose presidents have been mentioned 
in other connections, is taken from the Year Book. There 
is here added information, where the facts are known, in 
regard to the ethnic composition of the presidents of the 
institutions. 

Alabama Penny Saving and Loan J. O. Diffay mulatto 

Company 

Birmingham, Ala. 
Alabama Savings Bank Henry A. Boyd mulatto 

Selma, Ala. 
American Bank Wm. D. Neighbors mulatto 

Chicago, 111. 

4 Issue of 1914-1915, pp. 311-18. 



296 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Anderson Tucker and Company, 
Bankers 

Jacksonville, Fla. 
Anniston Penny Savings Bank 

Anniston, Ala. 
Atlanta State Savings Bank 

Atlanta, Ga. 
Bank Boley and Trust Company 

Boley, Okla. 
Bank of Mound Bayou 

Mound Bayou, Miss. 
Brickhouse Savings Bank 

Hare Valley, Va. 
Crown Savings Bank 

Newport News, Va. 
Delta Penny Savings Bank 

Indianola, Miss. 
Dime Bank 

Kinston, N. C. 
Enterprise Savings Bank 

Springfield, 111. 
Farmers' and Citizens' Savings 
Bank 

Palestine, Texas 
Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank 

Tyler, Texas 
Forsyth Savings and Trust Com- 
pany 

Winston-Salem, N. C. 
Fraternal Bank and Trust Com- 
pany 

Fort Worth, Texas 
Fraternal Savings Bank and 
Trust Company 

Memphis, Tenn. 
Houston Savings Bank 

Salisbury, Md. 
Industrial Savings Bank 

Washington, D. C. 
Isaac Smith Trust Company 

Newbern, N. C. 



C. H. Anderson 



W. H. McDonald, Cashier 



black 



T. J. Jackson 


mulatto 


J. 0. Ross 


mulatto 


Johnson 


mulatto 


J. W. Frances 


mulatto 


B. T. Coard, Jr. 




E. C. Brown 


mulatto 


W. A. Attaway 


mulatto 


T. B. Holloway 




John M. Mosby 




E. M. Griggs 


black 


W. A. Redwine 




J. S. Hill 





J. J. Scott 


mulatto 


Melvin J. Chisum 


mulatto 


John W. Lewis 


mulatto i 


Isaac H. Smith 


black 



Negro and Mulatto in Business and Industry 297 



A. L. Tucker 
N. H. Alexander 



J. P. Stanley 

J. F. Riddick 
R. F. Taniel 
F. L. Lights 
W. L. Mitchell 
L. A. Bell 

Samuel Lindsay 



D. W. Baker 



mulatto 
mulatto 

mulatto 



black 



mulatto 



Mechanics' Investment Co. 

Savannah,. Ga 
Montgomery Penny Savings 
Bank 

Montgomery, Ala. 
Mutual Aid and Banking Com- 
pany 

Newbern, N. C. 
Mutual Savings Bank 

Portsmouth, Va. 
Nickel Savings Bank 

Richmond, Va. 
Orgen Savings Bank 
Houston, Texas 
Penny Savings Bank 
Columbus, Miss. 
People's Bank and Trust Com- 
pany 

Muskogee, Okla. 
People's Dime Savings Bank and 
Trust Co. 

Staunton, Va. 
People's Savings Bank and Trust J. M. Townsend 
Company 

Nashville, Tenn. 
Solvent Savings Bank and Trust J. M. Sanford 
Company 

Memphis, Tenn. 
Sons and Daughters of Peace S. A. Howell 
Penny, Nickel & Dime Sav- 
ings Bank 

Newport News, Va. 
Southern One Cent Savings Bank 
Waynesboro, Va. 

This list includes the names of thirty-four men not here- 
tofore mentioned. In twelve cases, the ancestry of these 
men was not determined. In the twenty-two remaining 
cases, four are names of men of full blood and eighteen are 
names of mulattoes. 

Of the various organizations of Negro business men, the 



mulatto 



mulatto 






298 



The Mulatto in the United States 



largest is the National Negro Business League. This orga- 
nization was founded in 1900 and, with its subsidiary state 
organizations, numbers among its members almost every 
Negro of business or of professional importance anywhere 
in the country. The life members of the organization form 
the most representative list of successful and leading Ne- 
groes anywhere available. The officers elected for 1914- 
1915, the Executive Committee and the list of Life Mem- 
bers as given in the Report of the Fifteenth Annual Con- 
vention of the League have been arranged in alphabetical 
order and are here reproduced. To the lists as given in the 
report, is here added the fact of mixed or pure blood in all 
cases where the facts could be obtained. 

The officers elected for 1914-1915 were as follows: 



Booker T. Washington 

Tuskegee, Ala. 
Charles Banks 

Mound Bayou, Miss. 
J. E. Bush 

Little Rock, Ark. 
John M. Wright 

Topeka, Kansas 
P. J. Allston 

Boston, Mass. 
Charles H. Brooks 

Philadelphia, Pa. 
Emmett J. Scott 

Tuskegee, Alabama 
Charles H. Anderson 

Jacksonville, Fla. 
F. H. Gilbert 

Brooklyn, N. Y. 
R. C. Houston 

Fort Worth, Texas 
William H. Davis 

Washington, D. C. 
E. A. Robinson 

Kansas City, Mo. 



President 

First Vice-President 

Second Vice-President 

Third Vice-President 

Fourth Vice-President 

Fifth Vice-President 

Secretary 

Treasurer 

Registrar 

Assistant Registrar 
Official Stenographer 
Sergeant at Arms 



mulatto 



black 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



mulatto 



Negro and Mulatto vn Business and Industry 299 



The executive committee was given as follows 



W. T. Andrews 


Sumpter, S. C. 


mulatto 


J. B. Bell 


Houston, Texas 


mulatto 


S. E. Courtney 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 


S. G. Elbert 


Wilmington, Del. 


mulatto 


T. J. Elliott 


Muskogee, Okla. 


mulatto 
and Indian 


W. C. Gordon 


St. Louis, Mo. 


mulatto 


George C. Hall 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


T. H. Hayes 


Memphis, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Algernon B. Jackson 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


J. C. Jackson 


Lexington, Ky. 


mulatto 


R. E. Jones 


New Orleans, La. 


mulatto 


Scipio A. Jones 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


J. C. Napier, Chairman 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Logan H. Stewart 


Evansville, Ind. 


mulatto 


The list of life members was given as follows : 




3yrus Field Adams 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


M. S. Alexander 


Millard, La. 


black 


William Alexander 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


Phillip J. Allston 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 


Charles W. Anderson 


New York City 


mulatto 


W. T. Andrews 


Sumter, S. C. 


mulatto 


W. A. Attaway 


Greenville, Miss. 


mulatto 


rlenry Avant 


Helena, Ark. 


mulatto 


W. H. Ballard 


Lexington, Ky. 


mulatto 


Charles Banks 


Mound Bayou, Miss. 


black 


VTrs. Charles Banks 


Mound Bayou, Miss. 


mulatto 


Charles T. Bass 


Sullivan, Ind. 


mulatto 


tfme. I. B. Beale 


West Newton, Mass. 


mulatto 


r. B. Bell 


Houston, Texas 


mulatto 


5. C. Berry 


Athens, Ohio 


mulatto 


("esse Binga 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


. H. Blodgett 


Jacksonville, Fla. 


mulatto 


ames A. Bond 


Williamsburg, Ky. 


mulatto 


rheophilus Bond 


Madison, Ark. 


mulatto 


Eugene P. Booze 


Mound Bayou, Miss. 


mulatto 


r. W. E. Bowen 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


i. A. Boyd 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


I. F. Boyd 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 



300 



The Mulatto in the United States 



R. H. Boyd 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Charles H. Brooks 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


W. H. Brooks 


New York City 


mulatto 8 


D. H. Brown 


St. Augustine, Fla. 


mulatto 


Ira T. Bryant 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Nannie H. Burroughs 


Louisville, Ky. 


mulatto 


W. M. Burroughs 


• Memphis, Tenn. 




Chester E. Bush 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


Mrs. Cora E. Bush 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


J. E. Bush 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


J. A. Cabaniss 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


R. C. Calhoun 


Eatonville, Fla. 


mulatto 


T. J. Calloway 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


Richard Carroll 


Columbia, S. C. 


mulatto 


James G. Carter 


Tamatave, Madagascar 


mulatto 


H. M. Charles 


New Orleans, La. 


mulatto 


R. R. Church 


Memphis, Tenn. 


mulatto 


George W. Clinton 


Charlotte, N. C. 


black 


J. A. Cobb 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


Walter L. Cohen 


New Orleans, La. 


mulatto 


N. W. Collier 


Jacksonville, Fla. 


mulatto 


Bishop E. Cottrell 


Holly Springs, Miss. 


mulatto 


Samuel E. Courtney 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 


John Covington 


Houston, Texas 


black 


A. C. Cowan 


Brooklyn, N. Y. 


mulatto 


W. Alexander Cox 


Cambridge, Mass. 


mulatto 


W. W. Cox 


Indianola, Miss. 


mulatto 


Mrs. Belle Davis 


Indianapolis, Ind. 


mulatto 


Charles T. Davis 


Council Bluffs, Iowa 


mulatto 


George W. Davis 


Muskogee, Okla. 


mulatto 


Wm. H. Davis 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


A. C. Dungee 


Montgomery, Ala. 


mulatto 


S. G. Elbert 


Wilmington, Del. 


mulatto 


Mrs. S. G. Elbert 


Wilmington, Del. 


mulatto 


T. J. Elliott 


Muskogee, Okla. 


mulatto ■ 


J. Emanuel 


New York City 


black 


Wm. P. Evans 


Laurinburg, N. C. 


mulatto 


C. E. Ford 


Buffalo, N. Y. 


mulatto 


G. W. Franklin 


Chattanooga, Tenn. 


black 


S. A. Furniss 


Indianapolis, Ind. 


mulatto 


8 One authority calls 


Brooks a full-blood. 




6 A mixture of white. 


Negro and Creek Indian. 





Negro and Mulatto m Business and Industry 301 



James E. Garner 


New York City 


mulatto 


J. H. Garner 


Columbia, S. C. 


mulatto 


George A. Gates 


Nashville, Tenn. 


i 


Mifflin W. Gibbs 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


F. H. Gilbert 


Brooklyn, N. Y. 


mulatto 


C. W. Gilliam 


Okolona, Miss. 

J T 


mulatto 


W. L. Girideau 


Jacksonville, Fla. 


mulatto 


James H. Gordon 


Brooklyn, N. Y. 


mulatto 


W. C. Gordon 


St. Louis, Mo. 


mulatto 


A. A. Graham 


Pheobus, Va. 


mulatto 


Bishop Abraham Grant 


Kansas City, Kan. 


mulatto 


F. A. Gray 


Greenwood, Miss. 




Miss Mary A. Gray 


Paris, 111. 


mulatto 


C. A. Groves 


Edwardsville, Kan. 


mulatto 


J. G. Groves 


Edwardsville, Kan. 


mulatto 


Walter P. Hall 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


J. A. Hamlin 


Raleigh, N. C. 


mulatto 


James R. Hamm 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 


Mrs. Carol V. Harris 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


Gilbert C. Harris 


Boston, Mass. 


mulatto 


J. H. Harris 


England, Ark. -*? 


mulatto 


Henry A. Hatcher 


Waterbury, Conn. 




Allen Hatter 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


John R. Hawkins 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


Thomas H. Hayes 


Memphis, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Wm. V. Hewitt 


Muskogee, Okla. 




John A. Hibbler 


Little Rock, Ark. 


mulatto 


George Hoagland 


Bloomington, 111. 


mulatto 


W. H. Holtzclaw 


Utica, Miss. 


mulatto 


A. C. Howard 


New York City 


mulatto 


Alexander S. Howard 


Washington, D. C. 


mulatto 


P. W. Howard 


Jackson, Miss. 


mulatto 


S. P. Hurst 


Clarksdale, Miss. 


mulatto 


G. M. Howell 


Atlanta, Ga. 


mulatto 


J. C. Jackson 


Lexington, Ky. 


mulatto 


E. B. Jefferson 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


A. N. Johnson 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


C. F. Johnson 


Mobile, Ala. 


mulatto 


W. H. Johnson 


Baynesville, Va. 


mulatto 


W. I. Johnson 


Richmond, Va. 


mulatto 


E. P. Jones 


Vicksburg, Miss. 


mulatto 



7 One authority says that Gates is a white man. 



302 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Miss Hazel K. Jones 

R. E. Jones 

Scipio A. Jones 

T. W. Jones 

L. G. Jordan 

Mrs. Mary Josenberger 

C. W. Keatts 
W. A. Kennedy 
Willis A. Kersey 
H. W. Keys 

H. H. King 

D. L. Knight 
J. A. Lankford 
J. R. Levy 

A. L. Lewis 
J. H. Lewis 
M. N. Lewis 
Warren Logan 
W. L. Majors 
M. C. B. Mason 
U. G. Mason 
Anthony McCarthy 
J. B. McCulloch 
E. E. McDaniel 
J. D. McDuffy 

D. C. McGilbray 

E. H. McKissack 
Moses McKissack 
Kelly Miller 

T. J. Minton 
I. T. Montgomery 
B. J. Morgan 
T. Clay Moore 
E. C. Morris 
R. R. Moton 
W. O. Murphy 
J. C. Napier 
Mrs. J. C. Napier 
W. D. Neighbors 
Dave Nelson 

8 Or nearly so. 

3 Often incorrectly called 



Little Rock, Ark. 

New Orleans, La. 

Little Rock, Ark. 

Topeka, Kansas 

Louisville, Ky. 

Fort Smith, Ark. 

Little Rock, Ark. 

Boley, Okla. 

Indianapolis, Ind. 

Nashville, Tenn. 

Yazoo City, Miss. 

Louisville, Ky. 

Jacksonville, Fla. 

Florence, S. C. 

Jacksonville, Fla. 

Boston, Mass. 

Newport News, Va. 
Tuskegee, Ala. 
St. Louis, Mo. 
Cincinnati, Ohio 
Birmingham, Ala. 
New York City 
Muskogee, Okla. 
S. McAlester, Okla. 
Ocala, Fla. 
Boynton, Okla. 
Holly Springs, Miss. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Washington, D. C. 
Philadelphia, Pa. 
Mound Bayou, Miss. 
Indianapolis, Ind. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Helena, Ark. 
Hampton, Ya. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Nashville, Tenn. 
Chicago, 111. 
Scotts, Ark. 

a full-blood Negro. 



mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 
mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 8 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 9 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 



Negro and Mulatto in Business and Industry 303 



F. M. Nesbitt 
Charles Nunn 
Berry O'Kelly 
R. C. Owens 
Mrs. R. C. Owens 
ilnman E. Page 
Thomas F. Parks 
C. H. Parrish 
Fred D. Patterson 
Spenser Patterson 
F. A. Payton, Jr. 
A. C. Perdue 
E. S. Peters 
James T. Peterson 
W. R. Pettiford 
L. M. Porter 
Wm. M. Porter 
Troy Porter 
Harry T. Pratt 
S. D. Redmond 



Memphis, Tenn. 
Haughville, Ind. 
Method, N. C. 
I>os Angeles, Cal. 
Los Angeles, Cal. 
Langston, Okla. 
Louisville, Ky. 
Louisville, Ky. 
Greenfield, Ohio 
St. Denis, Md. 
New York City 
Muskogee, Okla. 
Mobile, Ala. 
Mobile, Ala. 
Birmingham, Ala. 
Little Rock, Ark. 
Cincinnati, Ohio 
Paris, 111. 
Baltimore, Md. 
Jackson, Miss. 



Mrs. Leila Walker Robinson New York City 



W. E. Roberson 

Wade C. Rollins 

J. O. Ross 

P. C. Roundtree 

H. A. Rucker 

Mrs. Daisy Saffell 

J. S. Sanford 

M. P. Saunders 

G. W. F. Sawner 

Mrs. Lena Sawner 

E. J. Sawyer 

W. A. Scott 

Scott, Wilkerson and Scott 

S. R. Scottron 

T. J. Searcy 

G. W. Shadwell 

H. C. Shepherd 

W. H. Sims 

Alfred Smith 



New Orleans, La. 
Prairie View, Texas 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Little Rock, Ark. 
Atlanta, Ga. 
Shelbyville, Tenn. 
Memphis, Tenn. 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Chandler, Okla. 
Chandler, Okla. 
Bennetts ville, S. C. 
Edwards, Miss. 
Memphis, Tenn. 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
Memphis, Tenn. 
Guthrie, Okla. 
Memphis, Tenn. 
Muskogee, Okla. 



black 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 10 

mulatto 

mulatto u 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

midatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulatto 

mulattoes 

mulatto 



Oklahoma City, Okla. 

10 One authority called Page a full-blood Negro. 

u One authority considered Parrish a full-blood Negro. 



mulatto 

mulatto 
mulatto 



304 



The Mulatto in the United States 



Isaac H. Smith 


New Bern, N. C. 


black 


R. L. Smith 


Paris, Texas 


mulatto 


Wilford H. Smith 


New York City 


mulatto 


C. C. Spaulding 


Durham, S. C. 


mulatto 


J. B. Stephenson 


Olive Branch, Miss. 




J. M. Strauther 


Greenville, Miss. 


black 


C. T. Taliaferro 


Perry, Okla. 


mulatto 


H. A. Tandy 


Lexington, Ky. 


mulatto 


Hilliard Taylor 


Boley, Okla. 


mulatto 


Preston Taylor 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


Holmes Terrs 


Holly Springs, Miss. 


mulatto 


Watt Terry 


Brockton, Mass. 


mulatto 


James C. Thomas 


New York City 


mulatto 


J. W. Thomas 


Bennettsville, S. C. 


black " 


E. G. Tidrington 


Indianapolis, Ind. 


mulatto 
mulatto 


John S. Trower 


Germantown, Pa. 


E. D. Tucker 


England, Ark. 




Mrs. Pope Turnbo 


St. Louis, Mo. 


mulatto 


M. W. Turner 


Indianapolis, Ind. 


mulatto 


N. T. Velar 


E. Pittsburg, Pa. 


mulatto 


W. T. Vernon 


Washington, D. C. 


black 


Mrs. C. J. Walker 


Indianapolis, Ind. 


mulatto " ' 


A. G. Wallace 


Okmulgee, Okla. 


mulatto 


E. E. Ward 


Columbus, Ohio 


mulatto 


B. T. Washington 


Tuskegee, Ala. 


mulatto 


J. W. Washington 


Marlin, Texas 


mulatto 


John L. Webb 


Yazoo City, Miss. 


mulatto 


John W. Wells 


Chicago, 111. 




Matthew Welmon 


Brooklyn, N. Y. 




R. W. Westberry 


Sumter, S. C. 


black 


C. P. Williams ' 


Chicago, 111. 




G. G. Williams 


Philadelphia, Pa. 


mulatto 


J. A. Williams 


Tampa, Fla. 


black 


J. S. Williams 


Shreveport, La. 


mulatto 


S. Laing Williams 


Chicago, 111. 


mulatto 


E. D. Willis 


Lexington, Ky. 


mulatto 


T. J. Wilson 


Memphis, Tenn. 


mulatto 


T. J. Wilson, Jr. 


New York City 


mulatto 


B. L. Windham 


Birmingham, Ala. 


mulatto 


T. C. Windham 


Birmingham, Ala. 


mulatto 


"Probably. 






13 One correspondent 


called Mrs. Walker full-blood. 





Negro and Mulatto in Business and Industry 305 



J. Winter 


Nashville, Tenn. 


mulatto 


5. W. Wood 


Lonewa, La. 


mulatto 


rohn M. Wright 


Topeka, Kan. 


mulatto 


Fohn T. Writt 


Pittsburg, Pa. 


mulatto 


Mrs. M. L. Young 


Edwards, Miss. 


mulatto 



The list contains a total of two hundred and thirty-five 
separate names. Of these, eighteen are of women and two 
lundred and seventeen are of men. The eighteen women 
seem in every case to be mulattoes. Of the men, seventeen 
seem to be of pure blood, while in sixteen cases the facts 
were not discovered. In one hundred and eighty-four cases, 
the men are known to be mulattoes. Of the total two hun- 
Ired and thirty-five, sixteen are not known, seventeen are 
black, and two hundred and two are mulattoes. The ratio 
jf mulattoes to full-blooded Negroes stand approximately 
at twelve to one. 

From all other sources, an additional compilation was 
made of successful business men. This list was independent 
of particular business connections. It contained real estate 
men, undertakers, farmers, merchants, and men in dozens of 
other lines of business. The criterion for selection was the 
known or alleged special success in an economic way. The 
list secured on this basis represents, naturally, a much more 
mixed group than either of the preceding. It includes, on 
the one hand, some of the most wealthy and highly success- 
ful Negroes in the country and, on the other, a goodly num- 
ber whose success is only nominal. It is, however, believed 
to be a representative list of successful American Negro 
business men. 

This compilation contained a total of three hundred and 
eighty-nine names. Twenty-eight of these were names of 
women and three hundred and sixty-one were names of men. 
The women were in every case mulattoes. Three hundred 



306 The Mulatto in the United States 

and six of the men were beyond question of mixed blood. 
Fifty- five were either full-blooded- Negroes or very dark mu- 
lattoes. Of the total three hundred and eighty-nine, fifty-five 
were classed as full-blooded Negroes and three hundred and 
thirty-four as Negroes of mixed blood. The ratio of mu- 
lattoes to full-blooded Negroes stood, in this compilation, 
in the approximate ratio of six to one. 

The analyses of the compilations of men and women suc- 
cessful in business and industry show, in each case, similar 
results, though with considerable variation between the dif- 
ferent lists. Washington's Negro m Bwsmess contains the 
names of two hundred and twenty-six persons whose racial 
ancestry in one hundred and fifty-eight cases was determined. 
Twelve of these were classed as black and one hundred and 
forty-six were classed as mulattoes — a ratio of slightly over 
twelve to one. The thirty-nine bank presidents were in four 
cases classed as black and in thirty-five cases as mulattoes — 
a ratio of nearly nine to one. The two hundred and nine- 
teen of the total two hundred and thirty-five officers and 
life-members of the National Negro Business League were 
found to be in seventeen cases black and in two hundred and 
two cases individuals of mixed blood — a ratio of approxi- 
mately twelve to one. The list compiled from the miscel- 
laneous sources contained the names of three hundred and 
eighty-nine persons, fifty-five of whom were found to be 
black and three hundred and thirty-four to be of mixed 
blood. This gives a ratio of slightly over six to one. The 
total number of names in the four compilations is eight hun- 1 
dred and twelve. Eighty-seven are classed as black and 
seven hundred and twenty-five as mulattoes, giving a ratio i 
of something over eight to one. 

The first three of these lists contain names elsewhere 
mentioned and in a few cases the same name is mentioned 



Negro and Mulatto m Business and Industry 307 

n more than one of the compilations. By removing all du- 
)licates and all names of men who have been mentioned 
n other connections, the number of names is considerably 
•educed though the ratios found to obtain between the mu- 
attoes and full-bloods is not materially altered. The ninety- 
?jight names in Washington's Negro in Business not elsewhere 
nentioned are in seven cases names of black men and in 
linety-one cases the names of mulattoes — a ratio of nearly 
:hirteen to one. The twenty-two bank presidents not else- 
where mentioned are four black and eighteen mixed-bloods 
— a ratio of four and one-half to one. The one hundred 
and twenty-four names appearing exclusively in the list of 
life members of the National Negro Business League are in 
eight cases of black men and in one hundred and sixteen 
cases names of mulattoes — a ratio of fourteen and one-half 
to one. The list compiled from the miscellaneous sources 
contains no names elsewhere mentioned. In the four lists, 
there is a total of six hundred and thirty-three names not 
found in any other compilation. Seventy-four of these are 
of men who are classed as Negro, and five hundred and fifty- 
nine are classed as mixed-bloods. This is a ratio of some- 
what under eight to one. It is thus seen that by removing 
from the lists the names of men of sufficient importance to 
be mentioned in more than one connection we have reduced 
slightly the ratio of mulattoes to Negroes of pure blood. 
A tabulation of the names appearing exclusively in these 
four lists follows: 

Men Women Totals 

Black Mul. Total Black Mul. Total Black Mul. Totals 
Negro in Business 6 70 76 1 21 22 7 91 98 

Banks 4 18 22 4 18 22 

N. N. B. League 8 101 109 15 15 8 116 124 

Miscellaneous 55 306 361 28 28 55 334 389 



Totals 73 495 568 1 64 65 74 559 633 



308 The Mulatto in tlie United States 

There still remain a number of influential and important 
men and women of the Negro race who do not fall natu- 
rally into any of the preceding groups. There are individ- 
uals whose influence among their own people is shown by the 
positions to which they have been advanced in the various 
lodges and other strictly racial organizations. There are 
a considerable number of individuals who have gained some 
notoriety and exercise some influence on the thinking and 
acting of the members of the race through professional agi- 
tation. Other important and leading persons are engaged 
in Young Women's Christian Association and Young Men's 
Christian Association work and various other sorts of up- 
lift work among the Negroes. There are prominent club 
women, church and social workers, professional and scientific 
men, newspaper men other than editors, farm demonstration 
agents, and various other successful and influential men and 
women who have not been heretofore mentioned. 

These individuals were brought together in a final com- 
pilation of a more or less miscellaneous nature. The total 
number of names in this list was six hundred and thirty-five. 
Analysis of this list showed the names of five hundred men 
and one hundred and thirty-five women. Sixty-four of the 
men and five of the women were classed as black; though, 
here as elsewhere, this category contained the names of men 
who are by no means pure-blood Negroes. Four hundred 
and thirty-six of the men and one hundred and thirty of 
the women who were obviously and unmistakably of mixed- 
blood origin were classed as mulattoes. The classification 
of the six hundred and thirty-five names thus showed sixty- 
nine to be names of Negroes and five hundred and sixty-six 
to be names of mulattoes. This is a ratio of something 
over eight to one. 

A combination of this list of names with the lists of busi- 






Negro and Mulatto in Business and Industry 309 

ness men previously tabulated, gives a total of 1268 names 
of men and women considered in this chapter and not else- 
where included. Of these, 1068 are names of men and 200 
are names of women. The men classify as 137 black and 
931 mulatto; the women, as 6 black and 194 mulatto. The 
total 1268 divide into 143 black and 1125 mulattoes — a 
ratio of nearly eight to one. Throwing the data into tabular 
form we have the following: 

Men Women Totals 

Black Mul. Total Black Mul. Total Black Mill. Totals 

Businessmen 73 495 568 1 64 65 74 559 633 

Not classified 64 436 500 5 130 135 69 566 635 



Totals 137 931 1068 6 194 200 143 1125 1268 

The inquiry into the relative status of the mulattoes and 
the full-blooded Negroes in the United States has taken into 
consideration a total of 4267 men and women. Summaries 
showing the sex of the persons considered, as well as their 
distribution into mulattoes and Negroes of full-blood, have 
been given in connection with the various compilations. 
Recapitulations of these summaries have been given at the 
close of the chapters. Bringing together in a single table 
the partial findings separately arrived at, we have the fol- 
lowing : 

Men Women Totals 

Black Mul. Total Black Mul. Total Black Mul. Totals 
Chapter VIII 14 205 219 2 22 24 16 227 243 
Chapter IX 57 465 522 7 98 105 64 563 627 
Chapter X 206 1638 1844 18 267 285 224 1905 2129 

Chapter XI 137 931 1068 6 194 200 143 1125 1268 



Totals 414 3239 3653 33 581 614 447 3820 4267 

We are now in possession of a sufficient amount of de- 
tailed and verified data to express something more than mere 



310 The Mulatto in the United States 

opinion concerning the relative success of the Negro of pure 
and the Negro of mixed blood. The list of 4267 Negroes 
before us includes every member of the race who has made 
any marked success in life; it includes every member of the 
race mentioned in the histories as an individual of import- 
ance; it includes the men who are, in the opinion of some 
thirty-odd of the best informed Negroes in the country, the 
foremost living members of the race ; it includes the names 
of those men and women who are, or have been, considered 
of enough importance to have received mention in the 
biographical and intimately personal accounts with which 
the literature of the Negroes abounds ; it includes the names 
of those men who have attained any high civil or political 
position, or have made any particular reputation, either 
national or local, either within or without the race, in any 
professional or artistic pursuit; it includes the men who 
have made any particular success in business or industral 
lines ; it includes, in short, as nearly complete and exhaus" 
tive a compilation as could be made of that relatively small 
group of Negroes who have risen superior to their fellows. 
It is believed that no Negro of first-class importance has 
failed to be included in some one of the various lists or sum- 
maries. It is believed that in very few cases individuals have 
been included whose accomplishments do not entitle them to 
some special mention when the criterion is, as here, unusual 
success within the Negro group. But granting that there may 
have been some few individuals omitted who should have been 
included and some few individuals included who should 
have been excluded — granting, that is, a reasonable margin 
of error — the list here brought together and analyzed con- 
tains the names of the members of the race who because of 
education, opportunity, special talent, superior native abil- 
ity, exceptional industry or for other reason have made a 



Negro and Mulatto in Business and Industry 311 

noteworthy success in business, professional, artistic, or 
other lines of human endeavor and so have become the excep- 
tional and the important men of the race. The list is com- 
posed of that group of men and women who compose the 
intellectual, social, and economic aristocracy of the Negro 
world. 

In the analysis of this group of exceptional Negroes, 
effort was made to follow the same line of demarcation 
adopted by the Bureau of the Federal Census. In the group 
of full-blooded Negroes, were placed those who so consider 
themselves or are so considered by other Negroes who know 
them, as well as those individuals of undoubtedly pure Ne- 
gro ancestry. In the group of mulattoes, were placed those 
individuals who claim to be mulattoes or who so pass in the 
communities in which they live, as well as those whose color 
and features show clearly and unmistakably that they are 
of a mixed racial origin. No individuals were placed in the 
mulatto group where the evidence of mixed ancestry did not 
appear to be conclusive. Many questionable and border-line 
cases were placed with and counted as Negroes of full blood. 
Consequently, in the full-blooded group, there are doubtless 
many individuals of mixed blood; probably a goodly per- 
centage of them are in some degree of mixed ancestry ; pos- 
sibly there are in this so-called full-blooded group more 
individuals of mixed than of pure blood. A stricter defini- 
tion of the terms full-blooded and mixed-blood would 
decrease the number classed as full-blooded and increase the 
mixed-blood group by an equal number. But in almost every 
case, the persons placed in the full-blooded group are dark- 
skinned individuals, of say three-fourths or more Negro 
blood, who consider themselves and pass among their fel- 
lows as Negroes of pure blood and, inasmuch as we are con- 
cerned with social conditions rather than with biological 



312 The Mulatto in the United States 

facts, there is no essential fallacy in so classing them. 

Classified on this basis of distinction, 447 names fall into 
the full-blooded group and 3820 names fall into the group 
of mulattoes. The 614 women included in the total are in 
33 cases classed as Negroes of full blood and in 581 cases 
as mulattoes. The ratio of mulattoes to black women thus 
stands at seventeen and six-tenths to one. The 3653 men 
are in 414 cases classed as Negroes of full blood and in 
3239 cases as mulattoes. The ratio of mulattoes to black 
men thus stands at seven and eight-tenths to one. 

The higher percentage of mulattoes among the list of 
women than among the list of men is due on the one hand 
to its being a smaller group and so representing a higher 
average of ability and, on the other hand, to the fact that 
many of the women owe their prominence to the fact that 
they are the wives of Negroes of importance. To the ex- 
tent that the latter is the case, the preponderance of mu- 
latto women is indicative of the tendency of marriage selec- 
tion among the Negro males rather than of intellectual su- 
periority among mulatto females. They are selected by the 
men because of their relative absence of color and owe their 
prominence to the fact of that selection. 

In many of the lists, a very much higher ratio than eight 
and one-half to one was found to prevail. In a few large 
lists, generally of a miscellaneous sort, the ratio was some- 
what lower. The rise above, or the fall below, this ratio of 
eight and one-half to one, it will have been noticed, depended 
in every compilation of any size upon the degree of im- 
portance and real distinction of the men whose names com- 
posed the list. The ratio of blacks to mulattoes, for ex- 
ample, in the compilation of doctors and dentists was ap- 
proximately fifteen to one; while in the compilation of 
preachers, the ratio was approximately five to one. In the 



Negro and Mulatto in Business and Industry 313 

one case, membership in the profession implies at least a 
minimum of training and native ability; in the other case, 
membership in the profession implies the minimum of train- 
ing and ability. The ratio of eight and one-half to one is 
thus the ratio prevailing between the mulattoes and blacks 
in a list of about four thousand of the most prominent 
individuals of the race. If the list be reduced in size 
by the elimination from it of the less important persons, the 
ratio of mulattoes to Negroes of pure blood would be cor- 
respondingly raised. By lowering the standard so as to in- 
clude a yet larger number of persons in the compilation, 
the relative number of mulattoes to full-blooded Negroes 
would be correspondingly decreased. The ratio of eight 
and one-half to one, therefore, is the ratio prevailing when 
a standard is used, which draws the line between the mass 
of the race and the four thousand who are the race's fore- 
most men. 

The ratio of mulattoes to Negroes of full blood among 
the four thousand leaders of the race is eight and one-half to 
one. The ratio of blacks to mulattoes in the general Negro 
population, on the basis of the same definition of the terms, 
is approximately four to one. If the standard be raised 
so as to exclude the individuals of the lower degrees of abil- 
ity and success, the proportion of mulattoes to Negroes 
of full blood will very greatly exceed the ratio of thirty-four 
to one. If the definition of full-blooded Negro be made to 
exclude those mixed-blood individuals of brown skin who 
pass as full-blooded Negroes, there will be a further increase, 
perhaps about a doubling, in the ratio of mulattoes to full- 
blooded Negroes among the leading men of the race. Stated 
in another way, the relative chances of a black child and a 
mulatto child, chosen at random from the members of the 
race, attaining to a position among the elite of the race 



314 The Mulatto in the United States 

are from thirty-four to fifty, or perhaps a hundred times f 
as great in the case of the child of mixed blood. The rela-i 
tive chances of the mulatto child over the black child de-i 
pend upon the standard of success called for and the degree 
of accuracy with which the terms full-blooded and mixed- 
blood are defined. On the basis accepted for the purposes 
of this study, the chances of the mulatto child developing 
into a leader of the race are thirty-four times as great as 
are the chances of a black child. 

We have arrived then at the facts in regard to the asser- 
tion and the assumption which it was the purpose of this 
section to investigate. This assumption was that the Negro 
people in America have produced as many superior indi- 
viduals of pure Negro blood as superior individuals of mixed 
blood. 14 The investigation has shown that the assertion 
is unsupported by the slightest basis of fact. Not even by 
accepting the loosest possible definition of terms, can it 
be made to appear that the full-blooded group even ap- 
proaches within a measurable distance of the mixed-blood 
group in the production of men even slightly superior to 
the racial average. The full-blooded Negro group has not 
produced as many superior men as has the mulatto group. 
According to the strictness or the looseness of the definition 
of full-blooded Negro that is used, and the high or low de- 
gree of superiority that is accepted as the test, the twenty 
per cent of mixed-bloods among the American Negroes have 
produced eighty-five per cent or upwards of the race's su- 
perior men. 

14 See p. 186 above. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE ROLE OF THE MULATTO IN THE INTER-RACIAL SITUATION 

THE role that a mixed-blood race plays in an inter- 
racial situation in which it is placed is dependent for 
the most part on facts and forces outside the race itself 
and over which its members are able to exercise little or no 
control. Their ambition is much the same everywhere ; their 
opportunity to realize their ambition varies with different 
social situations. The part they play in a social situation 
is dependent upon the attitude of the dominant group which, 
in turn, is largely dependent upon the exigencies of the 
general social situation. 

The desire of the mixed-blood man is always and every- 
where to be a white man ; to be classed with and become a 
part of the superior race. The ideal — the center of gravity 
— of the hybrid group is outside itself. The ideal of beauty, 
of success, of all that is good and desirable is typified by the 
superior race. The ambition of the man of mixed-blood is 
to be identified with the superior group; to share its life, 
its work, and its civilization. Certain mixed-blood groups, 
as groups, have been able partly to realize this ambition. 
In individual and exceptional cases, persons of mixed-blood 
are able in most urban communities to escape from their 
group and pass as members of the advanced race. Every- 
where, were it possible, the mixed-blood group would break 
with their darker relatives, hide their relationship to them, 
and, through marital relations, obliterate from their off- 

315 



316 The Mulatto in the United States 

spring the physical characteristics which mark them as 
members of a backward and despised race. Where this may 
not be, where an intolerable racial consciousness on the part 
of the superior race assigns individuals of all degrees of 
intermixture and of all stages of cultural advancement to 
the status of the backward race, the individuals of mixed 
ancestry tend to form a separate caste and to approach 
as near as may be to an equality with the superior group. 

There would seem to be no exception to this among groups 
of mixed-bloods anywhere. The Eurasians despise the 
Indian, separate themselves from him and endeavor to ap- 
proach, in habits, customs, and manner of life, the dominant 
British group. 1 They bitterly resent a special racial desig- 
nation which sets them off from the English ; they claim to 
be "European" and demand that they be so classed and 
recognized. 2 Among the Eskimos of the Greenland West 
Coast, the native's social standing is fixed according to his 
degree of approximation to the characteristic features of his 
Danish superiors. 3 The lighter the individual's color, the 
more eligible he is as a matrimonial possibility. The upper 
strata of Jamaica's "coloured" population separate them- 
selves from the other mulattoes, call themselves "white," ad- 
vocate intermarriage and, opportunity presenting, prac- 
tice it. 4 The metis of Brazil draw a more or less rigid social 

1 Mary Helen Lee, The Eurasian: A Social Problem, pp. 12-13. 

2 J. Smith, Ten Years in Burma, p. 117. Lee, The Eurasian, p. 14. 

8 See p. 32 f. above. 

4 Davenport shows that among the hybrid population of Jamaica 
and Bermuda there is a marriage selection against the dark males. They 
have less opportunity to become husbands of light-colored women than 
do light-colored males and hence they have a smaller chance of becom- 
ing fathers. This selection, he thinks, must have a real effect, in suc- 
cessive generations, in causing the hybrids to become lighter. C. B. 
Davenport, Heredity of Skin Color, pp. 27 ff. See, also, William Thorp, 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 317 

color line against the more highly colored groups and en- 
deavor to form such matrimonial unions as will, they hope, 
bring their offspring yet closer to the white type. 5 The 
Spanish half-breeds everywhere show a similar tendency. 
"Every one wishes to be reckoned as a white man." 6 The 
mixed-breed Indians in the United States tend to intermarry 
among themselves and not with the full-bloods. 7 In the 
United States almost every Negro of prominence from Fred- 
erick Douglass to Jack Johnson has married a white woman 
or a light-colored mulatto. 8 

There is no intention here to criticize the mulattoes or 

"How Jamaica Solves the Negro Problem," World's Work, Vol. 8, p. 
4912; and Charles K. Needham, "A Comparison of Some Conditions 
in Jamaica with those in the United States," Journal of Race Devel- 
opment, Vol. 4, pp. 189-203. 

5 Jean Baptiste de Lacerda, "The Metis or Half Breeds of Brazil," 
Inter-Racial Problems, p. 382. 

9 James Bryce, South America, p. 460. E. A. Ross, South of Pan- 
ama, p. 168. 

7 About four-fifths of the 88,030 persons of mixed Indian and white 
blood are one-half or more than one-half white. Indian Population in 
the United States and Alaska, United States Census, 1910, Supple- 
ment 1915, p. 35. 

8 ". . . Whereas we do not put our individual stamp of approval on 
Johnson marrying a white woman . . . but we still point to the many 
notable cases of black men who have married white women and the 
multitude of prominent colored individuals who barely miss committing 
the heinous crime by invariably marrying the near-white women of 
their race. What is so commonly practiced by the higher ups in every 
community should not be so highly censurable in Mr. Johnson's action 
simply because his matrimonial fitness largely looms up to the colored 
woman from a standpoint of financial healthiness of purse." C. A. 
Stokes, Kansas City Sun, a Negro paper, 4-3-1915. See, also, W. H. 
Thomas, The American Negro, p. 408; Maurice S. Evans, Black and 
White in the Southern States, p. 33; R. W. Shufeldt, The Negro: A 
Menace to American Civilization, p. 196; Ray Stannard Baker, "The 
Tragedy of the Mulatto," American Magazine, Vol. 65, pp. 582-98; 
Bert Williams as quoted in the Chicago Defender, 12-26-1914. 



318 The Mulatto in the United States 

other men of mixed blood ; quite the contrary. To recognize 
their desire to be white, their ambition to associate them 
selves through marriage or otherwise with the white race 
is but to recognize their ability to appreciate the superioi 
culture of the white group. u An opposite tendency or 
their part would go far towards establishing the thesis oi, 
the congenital inability of the lower group to assimilate 
white civilization. It would show a deliberate preference 
on their part for the inferior in the presence of the supe- 
rior. 

In contrast to the social ambition of the mixed-blood 
group, racial antipathy on the part of the dominant group 
is everywhere present. 10 Actual social equality between 
divergent racial groups in a population is found nowhere. 
Whether it be right or wrong, natural or artificial, this caste 
feeling exists and is always a factor in the racial situation. 
The way in which it manifests itself, varies with the people 
in contact and the conditions of their association. It may 
find its expression in a good-natured tolerance of the short- 
comings of an inferior group; it may show itself as con- 
tempt for a weak and backward race; it may show itself as 
disgust at the strange manners and customs of a degraded 
people ; it may be expressed as an intense and bitter hatred 
for the opposite race; it may take any one of a great num-< 
ber of forms ; but it is nowhere wholly absent. In general, 
the wider the difference in physical and cultural traits 
between the two races in contact, the more intense and 

9 "The fact that it is always the lighter race that puts the taboo on 
the colored, and that the latter is everywhere eager to mix with the 
whites, is only an evidence of the general trend of choice towards the 
higher efficiency of the white race." U. G. Weatherly, "A World-Wide 
Color Line," Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 79, pp. 474-86. 

10 B. L. Putnam Weale, "The Conflict of Color," World's Work, Vol. 
19, pp. 12327-29. 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 319 

bitter is the antipathetic feeling between them. 11 It is more 
intense between the North Europeans and the blacks than 
between any other two races. It is usually, though not 
always, less marked between the Mediterranean races and 
the primitive peoples of America than between any other 
culture and nature peoples who have come into contact with 
each other. 12 The number of members of the lower race 
in the social situation is also a factor conditioning the feel- 
ing that their presence arouses. A few individuals of a 
divergent type ma}' excite interest and curiosity; they may 
even enjoy a prestige simply by virtue of their unlikeness. 
But if present in greater numbers and especially if their 
presence is felt to constitute a menace to the superior cul- 
ture, the feeling against them may rise to a pitch of fanat- 
ical barbarism. Political conditions may be such as to 
compel the disavowal of this race prejudice, business rea- 
sons may counsel its concealment, individual isolation from 
racial contact may even prevent its rising above the thresh- 
old of consciousness ; but consciously or subconsciously it is 
an ever-present and active force wherever two races are in 
contact. 

It is the desire for social equality on the part of the 
mixed-blood group in conflict with the caste feeling of su- 
periority on the part of the dominant group which fur- 
nishes the key to an understanding of the place that the 
nixed-blood man occupies and the role which he plays in 
liiferent racial situations. These are the factors which 
ire always present and operating wherever a mixed-blood 

"James Bryce, The Relation of Advanced and Backward Races, pp. 
8-19. 

"However, ihe Castilian Spaniards in Spanish America gave an ex- 
ibition of caste feeling and of contempt for inferior peoples perhaps 
owhere else equaled in colonial history. 



320 The Mulatto in the United States 

race has appeared between two groups distinct in appear- 
ance and divergent in culture, occupying the same territory 
in anything like equal numbers. 

It is the conflict of these two factors which determines 
the role of the mulatto or other hybrid population. As a 
consequence of the variability of the factors among differ- 
ent racial groups and of their intensification, modification! 
or disguisement in conformity to the peculiar needs of the 
particular situation, the mixed-blood populations are found 
to play quite different roles in different inter-racial situa- 
tions. They may be allowed to identify themselves with, 
and to become an integral part of, the culturally superior 
group or race. They may occupy a place apart, form an 
outcast group with a social status inferior to that of either 
of the parent races. They may be a connecting link be- 
tween the white and the colored elements in the population 
They may be used as a buffer between the extreme racial 
types in the community. They may identify themselves 
with, and become the leaders of, the lower race of the popu- 
lation. There ma}' also be various combinations of these 
roles and numerous transitional stages from one to another. 

Where the hybrid race has been granted the opportunity, 
it has identified itself with the advanced group. The mixed- 
blood race of white, Indian, and Negro ancestry in Brazil 
affords perhaps the best illustration of this tendency. 

The social advance of the metis began during the regime 
of slavery. "As they were more active and intelligent than 
the blacks, they soon made their way into the homes and 
were occupied in domestic service. Many of them won the 
esteem of their masters and those about them. Some of 
them, giving proof of real intelligence and devotion to their 
employers, were, from a feeling of gratitude, emancipated 
by the latter and were given the rudiments of an artistic 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 321 

education. . . ." 13 Many of those who were freed contin- 
ued to live under the same roof with their former masters 
and their advance continued "in accordance with the laws 
of intellectual selection." 14 

At the time of the Emancipation, 15 the separation that 
already existed between the metis on the one hand and the 
Negroes and Indians on the other began to widen. 16 The 
metis, who were already found for the most part in the 
towns, became more exclusively an urban population. The 
class differences that had been accentuated for political 
purposes among the lower classes 17 gave them a profound 
"contempt for productive employments." They imitated 
the classes above them, ceased to labor, and formed a pseudo- 
leisure class. 18 

The Negroes from the moment of their emancipation be- 
came enamored of the leisure life. Neither they nor the 
Indians would longer engage in laborious occupations with 
any degree of regularity. 19 The Negroes began to with- 
draw from the centers of civilization and to find more con- 
genial associates among the Indians of the interior with 

"Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 379. See, also, Sir Harry H. 
Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 99. 
"Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 379. 
15 1888. 

16 The importation of slaves continued in Brazil to almost the date of 
emancipation. Over sixty thousand were imported in 1848. T. C. 
Dawson, The South American Republics, Part 1, p. 457. 

17 A. G. Keller, Colonization, p. 313. 

""But the mestizo runs to oratory and politics; not to labor." W. H. 
Koebel, The South Americans, p 97. 

19 ". . . the efforts which have been made in Brazil to attract the 
Indian or the mixed Indian and Negro population to the mines have 
not. ... on account of the indolent nature of the colored inhabitants." 
Sir Charles W. Dilke, "Forced and Indentured Labor in South Amer- 
ica." Nationalities and Subject Races, p. 106. 

"The negro, no longer a slave but a free and occasionally a some- 



322 The Mulatto in the United States 

whom they readily intermixed and into whose ranks they 
tended to disappear. 20 

At the time of the Revolution and the establishment of 
Brazilian independence, the mixed-blood group was suffi- 
ciently numerous and powerful to compel a recognition 
of social equality 21 and secure an equal place in the affairs 
of the government. 22 Consequently, the mixed-bloods came 
into closer contact with the culture group, while the gap 
between the mixed-bloods and the Negro-Indian group wid- 
ened. 23 At the present time, the metis are sloughing off , 
more and more the customs and habits of the colored races 
and conforming more closely to the manners of life of the 
white group. By marriage selection, they endeavor to 
make their children more like the Portuguese and less like 
the members of the lower groups. Economic and profes- 
sional success, or the achievement of political position ad- 
mits them to the lighter grades of Brazilian society. Pov- 
erty, atavism, or failure may throw individual members into 

what arrogant person, works only when he feels inclined." Koebel, 
The South Americans, pp. 92-93. 

". . . owing to the large proportion of negro blood among the work- 
ing classes and the luxurious vegetation by means of which life can 
be at least supported with a minimum of effort, the people are inclined 
to be indolent. . . ." The South American Year Book, 1915, p. 216. 

^Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 381. Johnston, The Negro in 
the New World, p. 100 f. n. 

It is to be remembered that conditions differ very radically in 
North and South Brazil. The great bulk of the Negro population is 
in the tropical regions of the North. Between the North and South 
Brazil "There is very little in common save the language." Koebel, 
The South Americans, p. 9. "So mixed is the blood of the lower classes 
that it is very difficult to tell who or what many people are, . . ." 
South American Year Book, p. 216. 

"All races and classes are recognized by the constitution as equal. 

u Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 381. 

79 Ibid., p. 382. 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 323 

the lower groups between which and the mixed-blood group 
there is coming to exist the same impassable barrier which 
in the United States, Jamaica, and South Africa exists 
between the whites and the mulattoes. 

Of course in general mode of life, social customs, etc., 
the educated coloured people of Brazil are scarcely dis- 
tinguishable from the Portuguese middle or upper 
classes, according to their means and social status. The 
peasants, however, away from the towns lead a more 
African existence, and except that the house or hut 
may be a little superior to the average negro home in 
Africa, manners and customs in domesticity are little 
changed from the standard of the Gold Coast or Da- 
homey — not a very low standard, by the by. 24 

The mixed-bloods are, therefore, for all essential pur- 
poses, a part of the advanced group, and tend to become 
more and more so. They have considerable influence in the 
governmental affairs of the country. All offices and honors 
are open to them. In the solution of the racial problem, 
so far as the above is true, they simply have no part. They 
have left the race, escaped from it, and by every means in 
their power endeavor to conceal and obliterate their for- 
mer connection with and relationship to the primitive 
group. 25 

"Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 105. 

25 The idea that the Brazilian Negro is being absorbed into the white 
race and transformed into a white man without essentially changing 
the physical type of the population is hardly to be taken seriously. 
It represents a "hope and the belief" rather than a rational judgment. 
Mr. Roosevelt says that the men and women "with whom I closely 
associated were in the great majority of cases pure white, save in the 
comparatively rare instances where they had a dash of Indian blood"; 
that the men and women of high social position are as unmixed as the 
corresponding classes in Paris or Rome, and that they will continue to 






324 The Mulatto in the United States 

. . . He is now a "Homem Brazileiro," and the word 
negro, even when applied to one of pure negro race, has 
come to be used only as a term of abuse, which may 
be made still further offensive by supplementing it 
with the words "de Africa." This has come to be one 
of the most offensive terms one can apply to a Brazil- 
ian citizen, even though he be of unmixed negro de- 
scent. If you must discriminate as to colour in con- 
versation, you speak of a "preto." 26 

Under other conditions, the bastard race may be the 
connecting link which holds together the divergent racial and 
cultural elements in a population. This seems to be the 
role of the mixed-blood group where they are a numerically 
important part of the population, and where there is a 
relatively weak sense of nationality on the part of the white 
group. Stated in other words, it is their role in those inter- 
racial situations where there is a more or less rapid amal- 
gamation in process between the divergent elements of the 

be pure white; that the classes immediately below have absorbed and 
will continue to receive a small amount of Negro blood while in "the 
ordinary people" the absorption of Negro blood will be "large enough 
to make a slight difference in the type." And finally he quotes a Bra- 
zilian "statesman" to the effect that the Negro is disappearing by 
absorption into the white race and "his blood will remain as an appre- 
ciable, but in no way a dominant, element in perhaps a third of our 
people, while the remaining two-thirds will be pure whites." When it 
is remembered that an eighth and frequently a sixteenth or even less 
of Negro blood in a Negro-White cross is sufficient to "make a slight 
difference in the type" it is readily seen that, even if there should 
be no further increase in Negro blood, the population of the country will 
need to be increased by from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
million white persons in order that the present ten million Negroes and 
mulattoes may be absorbed into the lower third of the population with- 
out producing more than a slight change in the type. The utterances 
of Mr. Roosevelt are often taken seriously. See T. R. Roosevelt, 
"Brazil and the Negro," Outlook, Vol. 106, pp. 409-11. 
"Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 100. 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 325 

population. It is the part played by the mixed-blood group 
in Cuba, in many parts of Spanish America, and in certain 
regions of Brazil. 

In Cuba, the mulatto occupies much the position of a 
connecting link between the pure-bred Spaniard on the one 
hand and the full-blood Negro on the other. There is no 
sharp break between the whites and the mulattoes, nor be- 
tween the mulattoes and the Negroes. The different shades 
of the hybrid group serve to connect the opposing cultural 
and physical types. They grade almost imperceptibly into 
the whites above them and into the blacks below them. The 
color line, in the sense in which that phrase is understood 
in the United States, Jamaica, and South Africa, is neither 
hard nor fast 27 and the mulatto is free to associate and to 
intermarry with the members of the white group. 28 In pro- 
portion to his success in life and his approximation to the 
Spanish cast of countenance, he is able to get himself 
accepted into the less exclusive grades of white or near- 
white society. 29 All this does not imply any lack of preju- 
dice or caste feeling on the part of the Spaniards. Caste 
feeling does not center at any one point ; it is diffused 
throughout the population. 30 Color is a badge of inferi- 

27 "Yet the Negro is losing ground, politically and socially, and 
unless he is content with his present status of farmer, laborer, petty 
tradesman, minor employee, and domestic servant, there will arise a 
'colour question' here as in the United States." Johnston, The Negro 
in the New World, p. 60. 

38 The one thing that makes the relations of the races more friendlly 
in Cuba than in the United States is that there their desire to mix 
with the whites is granted. R. L. Bullard, "How Cubans Differ from 
Us." North American Review, Vol. 186, pp. 416-21. Note particularly 
p. 417. 

29 R. L. Bullard, "The Cuban Negro," North American Review, Vol. 
184, p. 624. 

ao lbid., p. 628. 



326 The Mulatto in the United States 

ority. 31 The men at the top are white ; the men at the 
bottom are black. 32 Every man between is envious of the 
colors lighter than himself and contemptuous of those more 
highly colored. 

The racial situation on the mainland is not markedly dif- 
ferent. The mixed-blood race stands, industrially, politi- 
cally and socially, between the white on the one hand and 
native on the other. Except where Negro blood is present, 
there is generally no sharp breach between the mixed-blood 
group and the white race and no definite breach between 
the mixed-blood group and the mother race. The mixed- 
bloods envy the white and endeavor to marry into the white 
or near-white society. In proportion to the difference in 
their social status, they despise the Indian and the Negro. 
The mixed-blood group, however, ranges in appearance 
from the near-white to the near-Indian type and so forms 
a physiological tie between the mixed-white and white group 
and the Negro and Indian group. 

In general, the role of the mixed-blood individuals in Span- 
ish America seems to be that of a connecting link between 
the extremes of the population. It is their part to mix 
with the whites and the blacks and to serve as a tie be- 
tween the two. Racial amalgamation goes on between the 
whites and the mixed-bloods, and between the mixed-bloods 
and the Natives. The hybrid population is increased by 
both unions as well as by mixture among themselves, and 
the population approaches more and more to that of an 
exclusively hybrid one. 33 

31 Bullard, North American Review, Vol. 184, p. 629. 

32 Many of the Negroes are no further advanced than those in the 
Congo. William Inglis, "The Future of Cuba," the North American 
Review, Vol. 183, pp. 1037-40. Note especially p. 1039. 

33 In some of the more advanced states it seems already to have 
reached this stage. Chile has, more than most South American coun- 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 327 

The final outcome of these racial arrangements is de- 
pendent simply upon the relative numbers of the racial 
groups in the population. Where the hybrid is the numer- 
ically dominant group, as in Mexico, 34 it represents the 
probable future type 35 of the country's population. 36 
Where the white group is the more numerous and especially 
where it is being constantly reinforced by immigration, as 
is the case of Southern Brazil, the hybrid group tends to 
approximate more and more the white type, 3 ' and a single 
color line to separate the mixed-white group from the mixed- 
Indian and black groups. Where the native group predom- 
inates and where there is no appreciable immigration and 
no effective caste feeling on the part of- the mixed or su- 
perior groups to save them from a further infusion of native 
blood, the population is gradually reverting, in appearance 
and civilization, to the Indian type. The racial problem 
in the Spanish American countries finds its expression in 
periodical revolutions and a more or less chronic state of 

tries, been able to draw the line between the whites and the various 
grades of pure- and mixed-blood natives below them. Keller, Coloni- 
zation, p. 317. Bryce says "there are no longer any pure Indians" 
and that most of the aristocracy have remained pure white. South 
America, p. 232. See, also, p. 478. 

84 Seventy-five per cent mixed; 15 per cent Indian; 10 per cent Euro- 
pean descent. 

85 If one may speak of a "type" in a hybrid population. 

36 Sir Charles Bruce, "The Modern Conscience in Relation to the 
Treatment of Dependent Peoples and Communities," Inter-Racial Prob- 
lems, pp. 291-92. James Bryce, "Migration of the Races of Men," 
Contemporary Review, Vol. 62, p. 130. J. H. Van Evrie, White Su- 
premacy and Negro Subordination, pp. 157-58. Friedrich Ratzel, His- 
tory of Mankind, Vol. 2, p. 27. 

37 Lacerda, Inter-Racial Problems, p. 378. Luis Cabera, "The Mexi- 
can Revolution — Its Causes, Purposes and Results," Annals of the 
American Academy of Political and Social Science, Supplement, Jan. 
1917, pp. 4-5. 



328 The Mulatto in the United States 

guerilla warfare. 

Where there exists a strong sense of nationality or of 
racial pride on the part of each of the two parent races;! 
in the situation, the mixed-blood individuals usually are < 
without a respected position in the society of either. Each 
race having a civilization in which it believes and which it e 
considers the superior of any other, there is no natural J 
place for the half-castes except within the ranks of one orl 
the other of the parent races. There is no middle ground. J 
If they are rejected by both races or refuse to cast their 
lot with one and are rejected by the other, they are simply 
outcasts. They may form or be formed into a special caste, 
but it is a caste with an inferior social status within one 
or the other of the parent races, and not a class intermediate 
between the parent groups. The Eurasians are perhaps 
the best present-day example of a group rejected by both 
the races of which their ancestry is composed. 

In the Asiatic situation, the colored races have their own 
civilization to which they hold with a tenacity at least equal 
to that which the white man shows for his. The difference 
in culture is not merely a matter of degree ; it is a difference 
in kind. It is not that one is so much higher than the 
other, as is the case where the Negro and most of the lower 
races are in contact with the whites, as that they are dif- 
ferent civilizations. To depart from one is not to approach 
the other; it is simply to decline in that civilization. 

In this situation, the mixed-blood individuals must be 
either Europeans or Orientals. They cannot occupy a status 
above the one race and below the other. The civiizations 
are not so serially arranged. The hybrids cannot be part 
one and part the other. They may occupy an inferior sta- 
tus in either group, but this is not an indication that they, 
for that reason, stand nearer to the other. They cannot 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 329 

break connections with the white group without discarding 
European civilization; to go over to the colored group 
would be to accept the civilization of the Indians. But to 
the Orientals, the Eurasians are as much outcast as they 
are to the Europeans ; they can no more be Hindus than 
they can be Englishmen. They must give up one civiliza- 
tion or the other, and content themselves as best they may 
with the status assigned them by the group with which they 
elect to be identified. The older Portuguese Eurasians have 
for the most part reverted to the Indian civilization and 
accepted a special status therein. The English Eurasians 
or "Indo-Europeans" have endeavored to be English 38 and 
have received some recognition from the British rulers, 
though they are nowhere accepted by the Europeans on 
terms of social equality. They occupy subordinate clerical 
positions in the government service and are almost wholly 
dependent upon the English patronage for the means of 
existence. 

The Eurasian occupies an unenviable position. He 
is too proud to mix with the natives, who will, indeed, 
have none of him, and the European shuns him. He 
is a sort of social neutral stratum, regarded as for- 
eign and looked upon with suspicion by the brown 
race, and looked down on with contempt by the white. 
Popularly supposed to inherit all the vices and none 
of the virtues of his parents, there is little ever said 
in his favor. I fear you cannot call the Eurasian trust- 
worthy or truthful as a class, though of course there 
are many honorable exceptions. Certain it is he sel- 
dom rises to high employ, and is chiefly engaged in 
clerkly duties, for he has an unconquerable aversion to 
physical work or energy of any sort. The Eurasian 
88 ". . . they cling to their connection with the ruling class with a 

pride and persistency that is almost pathetic." Herbert Compton, 

Indian Life in Town and Country, p. 210. 



330 The Mulatto in the United States 

society is one apart and unique, and its etiquette and 
manners are often a fine burlesque on those of the 
white race, with which its members are proud to claim 
connection. Their womenfolk affect gaudy colours, 
and a Eurasian ball will display as many rainbow tints 
as a mulatto one. . . ." 39 

They are a sensitive, generally discontented, and trouble- 
some element in the community. 40 Their presence creates 
the most difficult of the minor problems in India. They 
stand in the presence of two civilizations and two race 
groups, but they are members of neither. They are com- 
pelled to remain a special group accepted by neither race 
and despised by both. 41 They are neither a connecting 
link between the races nor a harmonizing group between 
the extreme racial types. They are no more the spokesman 
or representative of the Hindus, than they are of the 
English. They are simply outcasts from both races with 
no natural role or dignified social status in the Indo-Euro- 
pean situation. 

Elsewhere in the East, the Oriental-European half-breed 
has developed much the same type of mind. He has no 
part to play in the inter-racial situation; he is himself a 
problem. 42 "The East seems to me to teach emphatically 
that the crossing of different races is always and every- 
where a bad thing." 43 

30 Compton, Indian Life in Town and Country, pp. 208-9. 

40 At the time of the Sepoy mutiny the Eurasians cast their lot with 
the Europeans and for a time a certain solidarity was established 
between them but the friendly feeling scarcely outlasted the time of 
danger. 

"£lisee Reclus, Asia, Vol. 3, p. 389. 

42 See James A. LeRoy, The Americans in the Philippines, pp. 26, 
65, 68 ff. Charles E. Woodruff, "Some Laws of Racial and Intellec- 
tual Development," Journal of Race Development, Vol. 3, p. 175. 

43 President Eliot, Chautauquan, Vol. 70, p. 285. See, also, Wu Ting- 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 331 

Under certain other conditions, the presence of the mu- 
latto population is utilized to lessen the friction between 
the pure-blooded races. The natural tendency of its mem- 
bers to form a separate parasitic caste when denied social 
equality^ with the dominant race is seized upon and fos- 
tered, and a caste developed in the community separate from 
either the white or the black, and standing between the two. 
In this position, they lessen the amount of contact between 
the extreme types of the population and so may lessen the 
clash between the races. They are used as a buffer between 
the pure-blooded groups. 

It is in about this role that the mulatto seems to figure in 
the racial situation in the British colony of Jamaica. The 
group of ruling whites is very small, 44 but here, as else- 
where, the English have refused to debase their civilization 
by compromising with the colored element in the formation 
of their national institutions. The civilization is distinct- 
ively English. But the governmental policy, dictated by 
the home office, has been devised with a view towards har- 
mony between the races. 45 

The mulattoes are not a numerically important part of 
the Negro population, but the white rulers have realized 
their possibilities for harm as dissatisfied agitators among 
the blacks. They also have realized the possibilities of the 
group as a harmonizing factor in the racial situation. As 
a consequence, they have utilized the mixed-bloods as a 
means of control of the lower and more numerous group, 

Fang, "China," Inter-Racial Problems, pp. 128-29, and Moh. Sourour 
Bey, "Egypt," Inter-Racial Problems, p. 170. 

44 About 2 per cent. See p. 66 above. 

45 That English opinion, not local opinion, must be the ultimate judge 
of local affairs is the conscious policy of British Colonial rule. See 
Gilbert Murray, "Empire and Subject Races," Nationalities and Subject 
Races, pp. 7-8. 






332 The Mulatto in the United States 

and as a means of lessening the friction between the ex 
treme types of the population on the Island. 

By catering to the mulattoes' desire for special recog 
nition and by fostering their caste feeling of superiority t 
the blacks, 46 the English have built up a middle-class grou; 
between the white aristocracy and the black peasantry 
This group includes the educated and professional classe 
of the Negro group and the more successful colored indi 
viduals in all lines of human endeavor. 47 The mulattoes b* 
long to the intermediate class by right of birth. 48 Blac 
men occasionally gain admittance if endowed with speck 
natural ability, or if they have been exceptionally successfi 
in the accumulation of property. 49 

This mulatto class has been separated in sentiments an 

48 The pride of the Jamaican in his white blood is shared by the oth< 
mixed-bloods of the Islands. "The Native Bermudians (brown) co? 
sider themselves much superior to the (black) Jamaicans." See Flo 
ence H. Doneilson, Appendix B (a) in Davenport, Heredity of Sfo 
Color, p. 105. 

47 Earl Finch, "The Effects of Racial Miscegenation," Inter-Bad 

Problems, p. 111. 

48 "There is a considerable element of the Jamaica population whic 
is known as 'sambo,' an element with about one-fourth of white bloo( 
this Caucasian or Semitic mixture shows itself plainly in their col( 
or their features, and they should, strictly speaking, be classed i 
'coloured.' But very few members of this section of the people hai 
so classified themselves in the census ... the term coloured, having \ 
custom come to be applied to persons of a distinctly brown or cle? 
complexion." H. G. de Lisser, Twentieth Century Jamaica, p. 4 
Quoted by Charles K. Needham, "A Comparison of Some Conditioi 
in Jamaica with those in the United States," Journal of Race Develop 
ment, Vol. 4, p. 192. 

49 Ibid., pp. 191-92. Catering still further to the mulattoes' desi: 
to be white certain members of the mulatto group of less than on 
fourth Negro blood are allowed to designate themselves "whites t 
law." Membership in the latter group is conditioned by the whitene 
of skin. They are the social aristocracy of the mulatto group thouf 
by no means necessarily the men of superior ability. 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 333 

interests from the black group 50 by a deliberate and thor- 
ough-going application of the "divide and rule" policy. 51 
By a judicious distribution of petty political offices and 
honors, 52 the whites secure their loyalty and cooperation in 
the affairs of government in spite of the rigid color line 
which they draw against them in social affairs. Any Negro 
who shows ability or talent for leadership is diplomatically 
separated from the black group and his loyalty to the gov- 
ernment and to the ruling whites assured by a political or 
other honor proportional to his danger as a disgruntled 
agitator among the blacks. Such political honor or the 
accumulation of a considerable amount of property will 
allow him entrance to "colored" society and, if the honor 
or the fortune be sufficient, assure him a mulatto wife. 53 
The larger the fortune, the whiter the wife. 

In this way the black race is separated from its natural 
leaders and remains a black and happy, a contented and 
helpless mass. 54 The mulatto, dependent upon the white 
aristocracy for his political position and business oppor- 
tunities and flattered by a racial designation that separates 
him from the peasantry and implies his superiority to it, 

60 J. A. Froude, The English in the West Indies, pp. 24-25. 

"See Sir Henry Cotton, Nationalities and Subject Races, pp. 46-47, 
and Lala Lajpat Rai, "The Present Condition in India," Nationalities 
and Subject Races, pp. 32, 39. The discussion here is in regard to 
the Indian polity. 

Compare the "divide and rule" policy of Spain's early colonial policy. 
H. C. Morris, The History of Colonization, Vol. 1, pp. 252-53. 

62 ". . . 'colored' men occupy most of the subordinate, and some of 
the higher positions in the public service." W. P. Livingstone, "The 
West Indian and American Negro: A Contrast," North American Re- 
view, Vol. 185, p. 647. See, also, Johnston, The Negro in the New 
World, pp. 280, 268. 

63 Thorp, World's Work, Vol. 8, pp. 4912-13. 

M Encyclopaedia Britannica: Jamaica; Thorp, World's Work, Vol. 8, 
p. 4910; Froude, English in the West Indies, p. 50. 



334 The Mulatto in the United States 

maintains that obsequious and respectful attitude of mind 
toward his superiors which is a universal characteristic of 
the dependent and the Unfree. 55 Harmony between the races 
is maintained at the price of a helpless peasantry and an 
intellectually prostituted middle-class group. 56 

This temporizing policy adopted in Jamaica is in strong 
contrast to that followed where the group of the white 
race in actual daily contact with the Negroes has been, 
allowed to dictate the relationship of the races. 57 In all 

66 The mulattoes are not in all cases satisfied with the arrangement. 
Davenport quotes "An olive-skinned man" as saying: "'I've often 
said I'd change the British flag for the American flag any day. Inj 
America they are prejudiced against all colored people. You may be 
a millionaire, but if you're colored you can't marry into white families 
or associate with them. Here with the English, if you are colored and 
have money you are all right, they associate with you; but if vol 
haven't money you are nowhere. The English aren't as honest as the; 
American, for they (English) hate the color just the same and only 
accept it for the money. . . .' " Heredity of Skin Color, Appendix B 
(b), p. 106. See, also, Livingston, North American Review, Vol. 185, 
pp. 646-47. 

66 H. E. Jordan, "Biological Status and Social Worth of the Mulatto," 
Popular Science Monthly, Vol. 82, p. 573, stresses the absence of politi- 
cal contention, Jamaica not being a self-governing colony, in account- 
ing for the difference in the race problem in Jamaica and the United 
States. ". . . But perhaps the perfect adjustment between the races 
in Jamaica and the elimination of any 'problem' of this kind finds its 
explanation in a more rational and a more consistent political treat- 
ment made possible by the absence of any constitutional prescription. 
We may well suspect that the inconsistency of according to the negro 
legal (constitutional) equality and withholding it practically (politi- 
cally and socially) has had a morally harmful effect upon both black and 
white. To stultify oneself as between one's theory and practice is ' 
always subversive of high moral tone. . . ." 

67 It is also very different from the German native policy. The Ger- 
mans, believing that an educated native of any shade of color is neces- 
sarily a rascal, have avoided the complications produced by a semi- 
educated native population by conforming their native educational policy 
to the industrial needs of the situation. Keller, Colonization, p. 589. 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 335 

:hese cases, the mulattoes are definitely excluded from so- 
cial equality with the whites and forced to find their asso- 
ciates either with the colored group or among others of 
:heir own kind. No special provision has been made for 
;hem and they are dependent upon their own exertions — 
'avored by the prestige their color gives them — for their 
success in life. No self-governing, North European group 
:ver has been willing to compromise its civilization by admit- 
ing the lower race to an equal hand in the affairs of gov- 
rnment. The more numerous the individuals in the colored 
rroup and the more their presence endangers civilized stand- 
irds, the more unyielding has been the policy of exclusion. 

In the self-governing colonies of South Africa, no effort 
s made to follow a policy toward the mulattoes that will 
nsure harmony between the races. 58 An impassable color 
ine is drawn by the whites between the races. The white 
nan recognizes no difference between the various grades of 
Negroes and Negro intermixtures below him in the social 
cale. 59 Consequently, the mixed-bloods cannot form a 
►uffer between the races as in Jamaica. Intermarriage does 
lot occur and the refusal of the whites to recognize the 
dixed-bloods as being on a higher social plane than the 
latives, prevents them from being either a physiological or 
. social connecting link between the races. 

The mulattoes, superior here as elsewhere, to the black 
lement of their ancestry, resent the refusal of the white 
lan to recognize their superiority and grant them special 
>rivileges and a special status. 60 They are a discontented 
,nd troublesome element in the community. 61 They cannot 

08 H. E. S. Freemantle, The New Nation, pp. 217-18. 
69 James Bryce, Impressions of South Africa, p. 375. 

60 M. S. Evans, Black and White in South East Africa, p. 289. 

61 Freemantle, The New Nation, pp. 319-20. 



336 The Mulatto in the United States 

break with the white group and identify themselves with 
the black without discarding all the essential elements of 
white civilization. 62 Their situation is, in many respects, 
like that of the Eurasians. Both groups stand between 
races having a strong sense of racial integrity and race 
pride. Both groups have to choose between the civilizations. 
The South African mulattoes can no more stand as part- 
native and part-white, than the Eurasians can be part- 
Hindu and part-European. 

The South African mulattoes, then, are without a part 
to play in the racial situation. Numerically they are an 
insignificant part of the native population. The numbers, 
the organization, and the better developed sense of national 
pride and racial integrity among the natives prevent the 
mulattoes from enjoying great prestige among the black 
group. Their importance in the native group depends upon 
their worth rather than on the whiteness of their skin. Con- 
sequently, the mulattoes are slow to go over to the native 
population and identify themselves with the native group. 
They play no dignified role in the racial situation. 63 

It remains to note in somewhat more detail the role that 
the mulatto has played and now plays in the racial situa- 
tion in the United States. This falls more or less naturally 
into three pretty distinct parts : I. his role under the 

M The mulatto of course has no desire to do so. His contempt for 
the native is as great as is that of the white man. The prejudice be- 
tween different groups for example, is so great that there are in Natal 
separate schools for natives, natives of St. Helena, Indians, Natal half- 
breeds and Mauritians. See M. S. Evans, Black and White in the South- 
ern States, p. 262. 

63 For a discussion of the so-called Ethiopian movement see Free- 
mantle, The New Nation, pp. 184-85; "The South African Natives," Ch. 
4, Report of the South African Native Races Committee; Current Liter- 
ature, Vol. 39, pp. 63-64. 



Role of Mulatto in Inter-Racial Situation 337 

aver j and reconstruction regimes ; II. the present day "in- 
illectuals" or "radicals," and III. the present day "conserv- 
tives" or "middle-class" group. A consideration of these 
;ages in the mulattoes' role in the United States will be the 
isk of the following chapter. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE ROLE OF THE MULATTO IN THE UNITED STATES 

BETWEEN the Negro and the white American there 
always has been absolute social separation on the basis 
of color. At the time of their first contact on American 
soil, the two races differed in language, customs, and habits 
of life ; in moral, mental, and religious development, as well 
as in ethnic origin, historical tradition, and physical appear- 
ance. A black skin, therefore, very quickly came to signify 
an inferior culture and, only a little later, came to be the 
badge of a servile condition. Between these races, there 
could be no social equality; there was not even a possibility 
of a harmonious working relation except on the basis of 
superiority and subordination. 

When individuals of mixed ancestry presently appeared, 
there was manifested no disposition to treat them as essen- 
tially different from the Negro. Their physical appear- 
ance, though markedly different from that of the pure- 
blooded race, was sufficiently marked to set them off as a 
peculiar people. In large part, they were the offspring of 
a class of whites whose degraded status was not markedly 
superior to the status of the Negro; when such was not 
the case, the bastard origin of the mulattoes shocked the 
conventional moral sense of the community and militated 
against a community recognition of them as socially supe- 
rior to the Negroes of full blood. This attitude presently 
found formal expression in the legislative enactments which 

338 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 639 

assigned the mulatto to the status of the mother. 

But the individual mulatto was, or what amounted to the 
same thing was believed to be, intellectually superior to the 
full-blooded Negro. Consequently, the occupational differ- 
entiation within the race everywhere operated to his advan- 
tage. The favored classes among the slaves, as the numbers 
of the mulattoes increased, came more and more to be light- 
colored classes. The trained mechanics and the trusted 
servants were drawn from the most intelligent ; these were 
always assumed to be the mulattoes. Moreover, the mu- 
lattoes made a better appearance than the black Negro 
and were less offensive in close association, and so gravitated 
to those house and personal duties which brought them into 
personal association with the master class. The plantation 
slaves and the rough laborers in the cities and the towns 
were the black men. The division was, of course, not every- 
where equally marked and it was seldom a sharp and com- 
plete separation. There were many full-blooded blacks 
among the favored classes and there were mulattoes in con- 
siderable numbers among the lower classes of slaves, but 
the tendency was toward a more and more complete separa- 
tion of the colors. Manumission further widened the breach 
that existed in bondage. The free Negro group at all times 
contained a preponderance of mulattoes; in some places it 
was, to all intent and purpose, a mulatto group. Such edu- 
cation of the Negro as existed before the war was almost 
entirely mulatto education ; 1 it was limited to the free 
Negroes and to certain favored individuals and groups 
among the slaves. All things tended to make the mulatto 
a superior man and to make the superior groups among 

1 A failure to recognize this fact is a glaring defect in the most 
important recent study of this subject by a mulatto. See C. G. Wood- 
son, The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861, 






340 The Mulatto in the United States 

the Negro race, mulatto groups. 

On their side, the mulattoes were not slow to recognize 
their superiority and to exaggerate it. The lack of sym- 
pathy? for example, between the house servants — largely 
mulatto — and the field hands — mostly black men — was 
throughout the slavery period a characteristic feature of 
the institution. 2 As freemen, the mulattoes formed sepa- 
rate societies, where they existed in numbers sufficient to 
permit it, and held themselves aloof from the slaves and 
the black men. In the North, the free Negroes came to 
recognize the slavery of slaves, but claimed special recog- 
nition for themselves as free men. 3 During the slave regime, 
the free mulatto society of Charleston became an elaborately 
organized and highly exclusive institution. It still exists in 
much of its pristine glory. 4 In Louisiana and especially in 
Mobile and New Orleans, the free Latin-Negro Creoles were so 
far separated in fact and in sympathy from the Negroes and 
the slaves, that they volunteered their services to the Con- 
federacy at the outbreak of the Civil War. Elsewhere, 
though the break was generally not so obvious nor so wide, 
the same caste feeling separated the mulatto and the free 
Negro from the black man and the slave. 

This potential mulatto class, however, received no spe- 
cial recognition from the dominant race. However, much 
as the mixed-bloods may have been favored as individuals 

a E. Atkinson, "'The Negro a Beast,'" North American Review, Vol. 
181, p. 209. 

»W. E. B. DuBois, Souls of Black Folk, p. 49. 

4 "In places like Charleston they had (and still have to some extent) 
an exclusive society of their own which looked down on the black 
Negro with a prejudice equal to that of the white man." Ray Stan- 
nard Baker, "The Tragedy of the Mulatto," American Magazine, 
Vol. 65, p. 588. See, also, Maurice S. Evans, Black and White in the 
Southern States, p. 93. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 341 

tfhile in bondage and helped as individual freemen, the dom- 
nant group everywhere refused to recognize mixture of 
>lood as sufficient basis for special class recognition. The 
lominant group classed all Negroes, regardless of color, 
is members of the black race, and made divisions among 
;hem on other lines. Their classification was an economic 
md not an ethnic one ; they, for example, separated the 
S T egroes into slave and free, into house servants and plan- 
;ation hands, and in various other ways according to the 
ipecial situation. That these legal and industrial divisions 
corresponded largely to the division of the race into mixed- 
>loods and pure-bloods was, from the white man's point of 
dew, incidental. He refused to countenance the mulatto 
jroup as a superior class in the community. The mulat- 
;oes, therefore, had only the pride of their white blood to 
iustain them as a separate and superior caste. 

Throughout the slavery period, the mulattoes were usu- 
dly not the leaders of the race; if indeed, one can speak 
>f leaders before the Emancipation. 5 They were, in most 
:ases, the superior individuals among the race ; 6 they were 
Lardly in a position to be leaders, they lacked the recogni- 
ion of the dominant race. Those who were free were equally 
ar from leadership. They were, for the most part, in the 
^orth and consequently they were generally without per- 
gonal acquaintance with the real Negro and, in most cases, 
vithout any accurate knowledge of Southern life and con- 
litions. They believed themselves to be superior to the black 
nan and felt themselves to be inferior to the white man. 7 

5 ". . . The great mass of the Negro people in the United States were 
lumb. In the plantation states, the black man was a chattel; in the 
Northern states, he was a good deal of an outlaw." Booker T. Washing- 
on, Frederick Douglass, p. 98. 

"See p. 190 ff. above. 

T J. R. Ficklin, History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, p. 127. 






342 The Mulatto in the United States 






They formed, or tended to form, separate groups somewhere 
between the two and out of touch and sympathy with both. 
It was a matter of class separation on horizontal lines 
rather than a matter of leadership. 

In the anti-slavery propaganda, the Negro or the Mulatto 
had little part. 8 He was the object about which the fac- 
tions contended, but was, for the most part, not himself an 
actor in the drama. Certain Negroes were exploited by 
the abolitionists for campaign and demonstration purposes, 9 
but so far as this was not the case, they were a quiescent 
and non-participating group in the national struggle. 
Baker 10 gives an accurate summary of the situation : 

In the antebellum slavery agitation Negroes played 
no consequential part; they w^ere an inert lump of hu- 
manity possessing no power of inner direction; the 
leaders on both sides of the struggle that centered 
around the institution of slavery were white men. The 
Negroes did not even follow poor old John Brown. 
After the war the Negro continued to be an issue rather 
than a partaker in politics, and the conflict continued 
to be between groups of white men. . . . Even in Re- 
construction times, and I am not forgetting exceptional 
Negroes like Bruce, Revels, Pinchback and others, -the 
Negro was a partaker in the government solely by vir- 

8 A complete list of the Negroes who took any active or important 
part in the propaganda is given on page 192 above. Washington, 
Frederick Douglass, pp. 154-55, names twelve, all of whom are included 
in the list above. 

9 "William Lloyd Garrison was quick to discern that the cause needed 
this fugitive slave, more than any other man or thing, as an argument 
and an illustration of the further work of the anti-slavery society." 
Washington, Frederick Douglass, p. 72. He is speaking here of the 
anti-slavery people using Douglass as an exhibit. See, also, p. 144. 

10 Ray Stannard Baker, "Problems of Citizenship," Annals of the 
American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 49, p. 93. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 343 

tue of the power of the North. As a class the Negroes 
were not self-directed, but were used by the Northern 
^constructionists and certain political Southerners, 
who took most of the offices and nearly all the pilferings. 

After the emancipation of the slaves, many Northern mu- 
lattoes presented themselves and were advanced by the abo- 
litionists as the logical leaders of the newly freed race ; " 
they assumed the role of spokesmen for the people of their 
color. The fact that they were members of the Negro race 
was accepted by themselves and by many of their Northern 
friends as evidence of sufficient qualification for the delicate 
and arduous task of leading and representing the liberated 
blacks. 12 

But aside from the caste feeling of superiority due to 
their white blood, their longer period of freedom, and their 
somewhat superior education, these Northern mulattoes were 
in other ways disqualified for any real leadership. The 
mulattoes and free Negroes were for the most part city men, 
while the Negroes were, and had always been, a rural popu- 
lation. The natural arrogance and naive assumption of 
superiority which seem everywhere to be persistent traits 
of the city-bred men, served to widen the gulf that caste 
feeling made between the freedmen and their proposed 
leaders. They did not understand the country men. The 
gap was still further widened by their lack of knowledge 
of the South and the conditions prevailing there. Many of 
them had been associated directly or indirectly with the 
abolitionists who, though engaged for the better part of a 
generation in agitation, knew nothing about the Negro, 13 

u See Washington, Frederick Douglass, p. 270-71. 
12 Booker T. Washington, "Negro Disfranchisement and the Negro in 
Business," Outlook, Vol. 93, p. 311. 
18 Mr. Washington would include the whole North as well as the abo- 



344 The Mulatto in the United States 






and but little about his condition. So, in addition to the 
prejudices and misconceptions common to their locality, 
the mulattoes were handicapped for any real leadership by 
the possession of a whole body of sentimental doctrine which 
when not false seldom had any relation to the objective facts. 
The abolitionists, and consequently their followers, saw 
everything in terms of their propaganda ; their zealous de- 
votion to their cause obscured their perception of reality. 
Facts were made to fit theory. They did not look upon 
the Negro as a primitive man whom slavery had been slowly 
raising to a higher cultural level; they looked upon him 
as an individual whom slavery had degraded to his present 
condition; 14 and attributed to him all the desirable traits 
of human nature. The Negro of their conception was an 
idealized abstraction; a glorified creature of the imagina- 
tion and of the Uncle Tom's type of literature. 15 The re- 
frain of the abolitionists that the Negro was "half a cen- 
tury ahead of the poor white man of the South," was ac- 
cepted by their mulatto disciples as a fact. They rarely 
had anything more than a superficial comprehension of the 
meaning of the anti-slavery propaganda in which they took 
part; they were full of words, abstractions and misconcep- 

litionists. ". . . the people of the North had . . . little knowledge of 
the Negro's character. . . ." Frederick Douglass, p. 248. 

14 "The Negro inherits a brain which work has cultivated for four 
generations, and added to it the skill of a practical hand. The white 
man inherits a brain sodden by the idleness of four generations, and he 
has improved his birthright by a life of soddenness. . . . Fairly con- 
sidered, the only class ready for suffrage in the South is the Negro.'* 
Wendell Phillips, 1865. Quoted by F. A. Bancroft, Negro in 
Politics, p. 10. 

16 This idea persists among the Northern mulattoes even to-day. "I 
do not think it is claiming too much to say that 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' 
was a fair and truthful panorama of slavery; . . ." James W. John- 
son, The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man, p. 40. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 345 

tions, and, at the close of the war, they were dominated 
by the fixed determination to reverse the economic and so- 
cial status of the two races in the South. 

When these men went into the South after the war to 
become leaders of the newly-freed race, many of them for the 
first time came into contact with the real Negro. They had 
known an abstraction. The Negro and the conditions of 
his life were so unlike their expectations, and their own 
training was so pitifully inadequate that, in the crisis of 
their disillusionment in regard to the Negro's character and 
conditions, they were in general unable to accommodate 
themselves to the real conditions in such a way as to make 
them valuable men in the situation. The disillusionment 
brought a reaction in their sentiments and their attitudes 
toward him and toward themselves. 16 They became resent- 
ful toward the Negro. 17 They were unwilling or unable to 

16 ". . . We passed along until, finally we turned into a street . . . 
and here I caught my first sight of colored people in large numbers. . . . 
here I saw a street crowded with them. They filled the shops and 
thronged the sidewalks and lined the curb. I asked my companion if 
all the colored people in Atlanta lived in this street. He said they did 
not, . . . The unkempt appearance, the shambling, slouching gait and 
loud talk and laughter of these people aroused in me a feeling of almost 
repulsion. . . ." Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man, 
pp. 53-54. 

"The most bitter arraignment of the Negro which at the same time 
keeps accurately to the facts is the volume of W. H. Thomas, The 
American Negro, a mulatto who went South after the War to be a 
leader of the race. As a disclosure of the mulattoes' sentiments and 
attitudes it is the most valuable single document in Negro literature. 
It states the things that others deny or endeavor to conceal. Said one 
of the most widely known mulattoes of the race in discussing the book: 
"Of course it's true; every word of it is true. But, damn it, we don't 
want those things told." The chief value of the document, however, 
is quite aside from the facts with which it deals. It lies in the treat- 
ment of the facts, in the naive disclosure of the psychology of the dis- 
illusioned mulatto. 



346 The Mulatto in the United States 

put themselves on a social par with the freedman and to 
attempt to help him. They became more and more ashamed 
of their race and of the color which associated them with 
it. 18 Their contempt for the blacks, combined with their 
general ignorance of what to do or how to do it, made them 
for the most part men of no value in the situation. Instead 
of leaders, the mulattoes from the North tended to become 
agitators and so to become an additional race problem with- 
in the already difficult one of readjusting the relationships 
of the races. 

The political reconstruction of the South gave a brief 
opportunity for the mulatto and Negro politicians. 19 In 
spite of the War and the Emancipation, the bulk of the 
Southern Negroes remained loyal to their Southern whites 
and willing to be led by them. 20 In order to insure the per- 
manent supremacy of the Republican party in national 
politics, it was deemed necessary to use the newly-freed 
blacks. 21 But to do this, it was necessary to separate them 

18 The repulsive reaction of the Northern trained mulatto in contact 
for the first time with the real Negro has found its best expression to 
date in the book of Mr. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk. This book 
is the outcome of the brief period of bitter exile which the author 
spent as a teacher in a Negro school in the South. Aside from the 
subject matter of which they treat these essays are an illuminating dis- 
closure of the psychology of a timid and unpractical man, white in train- 
ing, association, and thought and nearly white in appearance, with no 
real knowledge of his race and with only an academic sympathy for it, 
who is thrown for the first time among a body of blacks, classed with 
them, compelled to find his associates among them and who refuses, 
subconsciously, to accept the classification. 

19 These Negro politicians were very largely recruited from the free 
Negro class of the South. 

20 Mr. Washington says that the Negro would have followed the lead- 
ership of the Southern white "as willingly, if not more willingly, than 
that which he did accept." Frederick Douglass, p. 254. 

21 "As you once needed the muskets of the blacks, so now you need 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 347 

'in sympathy from their late masters. The first agency in 
the destruction of this loyalty was the Freedman's Bureau. 
To complete the work of alienating the sympathy of the 
Southern whites and blacks, and to anchor the black vote 
to the Republican party, was a task of the Reconstruction 
policy in general. To this end, every means known to venal 
politics — from simple theft to official murder — was employed 
without scruple or hesitation by a group of men debased 
beyond the power of common language to describe. Both 
races suffered from the policy. 

In this period, the Negro and mulatto leaders were simply 
tools in the hands of the vandals. The independent part 
they had in the political life of the time was not an im- 
portant nor a creditable one. A few men of ability ap- 
peared and also a few honest ones. 22 The majority of these 
men and all of any ability were mulattoes. The great mass 
of these Negro politicians, however, was not markedly su- 
perior to the rank and file of the newly enfranchised race, 23 
and even the best were moved by no conceptions of unselfish 
public policy. 24 In nearly all cases, they were wholly un- 



their votes." Charles Sumner, Speech in the Senate, Works, Vol. 11, 
p. 50. 

22 Washington, Frederick Douglass, pp. 278-80. 

See, also, Negro Year Book for lists of these Negro politicians 
of Reconstruction days. 

23 "Beverly Nash, for many years the leader in the Senate and on the 
stump, had been a boot-black and a hotel porter." Bancroft, The 
Negro in Politics, p. 30. Nash was known as "a five thousand dollar 
man," that being the amount he always asked for his vote on important 
bills. 

24 " '. . . if the Negro knows enough to fight for his country, he knows 
enough to vote; if he knows enough to pay taxes to support the govern- 
ment, he knows enough to vote; if he knows as much when sober as an 
Irishman knows when he is drunk, he knows enough to vote.' " Fred- 
erick Douglass. Quoted by Washington, Frederick Douglass, pp. 258-59. 



348 The Mulatto in the United States 

educated, 25 without responsibility, 26 and devoid of any sense 
of public or private honesty. They were, just as they were 
intended to be, simply a convenient means by which the 
white politicians could more easily rob and steal: the Negro 
was frequently allowed the questionable honor of holding a 
political position, while the white politician collected the 
plunder. 27 

The end of the Reconstruction Period marked an end 
of the Negro as a participant in the local political situation 
in the Southern States. The withdrawal of the Federal 
troops and the restoration of law and order, left them with- 
out a vocation or a support ; they had no work or place in 
the life of the society. In large measure, they left the 
South at the close of the period. The Federal government, 
however, always has been liberal in the bestowal of political i 
offices on the Negro politicians, and a few continued to 
exist throughout the South. 

The reaccommodation of the races after the war and the 
Emancipation, and especially after the period of political 
reconstruction, took place in accordance with local condi- 
tions. The difference in different regions was, in the main, 
due to the presence of larger or smaller numbers of the un- 
assimilated element in the body politic. In regions where 
the numbers were not great, they could be ignored; the 

25 In the South Carolina Legislature of 1873 for example, many of 
the members could neither read nor write. In Mississippi "the County 
supervisors were often black, only a few of whom could either read 
or write." Bancroft, The Negro in Politics, pp. 30, 39-40. 

28 In the South Carolina Senate 1868, "Only four of the Negro Sena- 
tors were on the tax books; and they together paid only $2.10. Fifty- 
eight of the colored representatives paid no taxes." Ibid., p. 22. 

27 "After a session or two of apprenticeship under white leaders, many 
of the Negro officials became adepts in the shameless practices of the 
time." Ibid., pp. 29 ff. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 349 

greater percentage of Negroes in other regions colored the 
whole subsequent growth of the community life. At no time 
or place, however, were the Negroes able to exercise any 
marked influence on the course of events ; they were nowhere 
able to modify the attitudes or even the overt acts of the 
dominant group. The policy or lack of policy was every- 
where dictated by the white race. On the side of the Ne- 
groes, it was marked by their accommodation to a social 
policy which they were not able to control or modify. The 
policy has varied from time to time and from place to place, 
but it has done so without consulting the wishes of the Ne- 
groes. The single universal fact has been the consistent 
denial of social equality to members of the race. 

In the South, the emancipation of the Negro was followed 
by a prolonged period of unfortunate doctrinaire experi- 
mentation which retarded a reaccommodation between the 
races that held any promise of permanence or mutual satis- 
faction. The first effect of the emancipation, once the Ne- 
groes realized its actuality, was a complete and profound 
economic, social, and moral disorganization of the Negro 
people. The white South was confronted with the problem 
of adjusting the relations of the races in conformity with 
the changed economic and legal conditions. There was 
no precedent to guide them. Nowhere had two such races 
ever arrived at mutually satisfactory working relations on 
any other basis than that of superiority and subordina- 
tion. Slavery of the one by the other was the only adjust- 
ment that ever had worked. 

The natural difficulty of the problem was made yet more 
difficult by the period of punishment visited on the South in 
the decade following the War. The promise of government 
grants of land and other property by the confiscation of 
the property of the white South and its redistribution among 



350 The Mulatto in the United States 

the late slaves, intensified the general economic disorganiza- 
tion resulting from the war and the emancipation of the 
slaves, and spread among the Negroes a general discontent 
with their condition and a disinclination to improve it by 
any real and continued effort. 28 The efforts to improve 
the Negroes' condition by means of a fashionable literary 
education, diverted some of the best energies of the race 
from the simpler and more important forms of education, 
produced a class of superficially educated men unfitted for 
any useful work among their people. The increase in the 
number of these, like the increase of the uneducated idle 
riff-raff, aggravated the friction between the races. 29 The 
efforts of the missionaries and others to bring about a revo- 
lution in the Negroes' character and in the inter-racial social 
life, inflamed their social ambitions and alienated the sym- 
pathy of the whites. The enfranchisement of the blacks 
prevented any normal division of opinion on matters of a 
public social nature. The paramount need of bending every 
effort toward the preservation of their civilization retarded 
progress toward a permanent and mutually satisfactory ad- 
justment between the races. 30 The result of this period was 
the almost complete destruction of the mutually sympathetic 
feelings which so generally had characterized the relations 
of the races during the slave period. 31 As time went on, 
such friendlly association as survived the Reconstruction 
days — principally that between the older slaves and the 

28 W. L. Fleming, "Forty Acres and a Mule," North American Review, 
Vol. 182, pp. 721-37. 

20 McCord, The American Negro as a Dependent, Defective and Delin- 
quent, p. 65. 

80 Bruce, "Race Segregation in the United States," Hibbert Jour- 
nal, Vol. 13, p. 868. 

"McCord, The American Negro as a Dependent, Defective and Delin- 
quent, p. 18. 






Role of the Mulatto in the United States 351 



older slave masters — became less and less. The younger 
generation of both races had not the body of sentiment to 
withstand the crisis ; those of a later generation lacked it 
altogether. 32 After a decade, the mechanics and skilled 
workmen in all industrial and domestic lines who had re- 
ceived their training under the slave regime, began to dis- 
appear or to become too old for further effective employ- 
ment. 33 The new education had trained no younger ones 
to take their places. A decline in the Negroes' condition 
was inevitable ; all through the period of political and so- 
cial agitation and of classical education, the race lost 
ground. It was in the eighties that the Northern political, 
educational, and religious tutelage of the post-bellum pe- 
riod was coming to fruitage. 34 

In the meanwhile, however, there were other forces at 
work making for an adjustment of the races in accordance 
with the character of the two races and in response to the 

83 "The entire body of Negroes, under middle age, have not even 
a tradition among them of that kindly intercourse between the master 
and his bondsmen which did so much to smooth away the harsher feat- 
ures of slavery in its practical working. They cannot understand the 
feeling of loyalty which made their fathers the faithful protectors of the 
Southern white women and children when all the white men had been 
enrolled in the armies of the Confederacy." Bruce, Hibbert Journal, 
Vol. 13, p. 870. This loyalty of the slave to his former master is a 
thing that frequently does not fall within the comprehension of the 
present generation of mulattoes. Benjamin Brawley, one of the most 
capable of the present generation of mulattoes, discussing with con- 
siderable insight the recent fiction dealing with Negro characters, is 
unable to grasp the fact that a Negro of exceptional type should have 
preferred to remain with the old master. See, "The Negro in American 
Fiction," Dial, Vol. 60, pp. 445-50, especially the criticism of "Abraham's 
Freedom" {Atlantic, 9-1912), pp. 448-49. 

88 Booker T. Washington, The Future of the American Negro, Chap- 
ter 3. 

84 Sir Harry H. Johnston, The Negro in the New World, p. 403. 



352 The Mulatto in the United States 

influences of the common environment. There was slowly 
growing up a body of industrious, law-abiding, and self- 
respecting Negroes, and with their increase in number, in 
wealth, and in self-respect, they were assuming a growing 
importance in the affairs of the race. Previous to the Eman- 
cipation, there was throughout the South a goodly number 
of property-owning free Negroes with a respected position 
in the life of the community. In the decades immediately 
following the emancipation of the Negroes, the Federal 
government distributed among them a considerable amount 
of property and, in addition to this Federal aid, there was 
the plunder which in many of the states came to the race 
during the period of Negro domination in political affairs. 35 
After the war, and especially after the Reconstruction 
Period, a goodly number of Negroes had returned to their 
plantations, 36 or had settled down elsewhere and had begun 
to lead a frugal and industrious life, to educate their children 
and otherwise to make a common sense effort to improve 
their condition. 37 The conditions of life were absurdly 
easy. 38 Any industrious and sober man could, as the re- 
sult of a few years' labor, become possessed of sufficient 

35 In only a few cases, however, were the Negro politicians sufficiently 
shrewd to save the fortunes accumulated through theft and corruption 
during the period of Negro domination. 

36 Nicholas Worth, Autobiography, p. 14. 

37 For the most part these were men who had received an industrial 
education under the slave regime. See Washington, "The Story of 
the Negro," Outlook, Vol. 93, p. 311. 

38 "It was easy to live in the South. The mild climate and fertile 
soil, the abundance of game in forest and stream, the bountiful supply 
of wild fruits, the accessibility of forests with firewood free to all, the 
openhanded generosity and universal carelessness of living made it pos- 
sible for the average Negro to idle away at least half his time and 
yet live in tolerable comfort." G. S. Winston, "The Relations of the 
Whites to the Negroes." Annals of the American Academy of Political 
and Social Science, July, 1901. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 353 

land and other property to make him independent of the 
wage system. An honest, industrious, and useful Negro 
citizenship was the desire of the white South and every 
Negro who showed a disposition to improve his condition 
received the encouragement and assistance of the better 
class of white men. 89 In spite of all this, however, the growth 
of the middle-class was abnormally slow ; 40 but there grad- 
ually emerged a body of men within the race possessed 
of a little property and of an ambition to accumulate 
more. 

The two forces chiefly responsible for the rise of this 
racially independent middle-class, and a consequent new 
adjustment of the races, were the growth of the agricul- 
tural and industrial education for the Negro and the segre- 
gation of the Negro by the whites. 41 The whole movement 
to develop an industrially-educated, land-owning, law-abid- 
ing, and decent-living Negro group among the blacks, usu- 
ally thought of in connection with the name of Booker T. 
Washington, was the result of an effort on the part of the 
white South and some of the saner leaders among the 
Negro people to make the Negro see and grasp his oppor- 
tunity. 42 The movement was based on the wreck of the 

88 So general was the assistance of Southern white men to the am- 
bitious and law-abiding Negro that Mr. Washington, himself the best 
representative of this growing middle-class, says that almost every 
successful man of the race can trace his success to the assistance of some 
white neighbor or friend. The Story of the Negro, Vol. % pp. 35 ff\ 

40 Ibid., Vol. 2, Chapter 2, "The Rise of the Negro Land-Owner," gives 
the most favorable statement of the case that can be made. 

41 These two main forces were, of course, assisted or modified by va- 
rious minor factors operating locally. 

4a "A very weak argument often used against pushing industrial 
training for the Negro is that the Southern white man favors it, and 
therefore, it is not best for the Negro." Washington, The Future of 
the American Negro, p. 64. 



I 



354 The Mulatto in the United States 

earlier efforts to improve the condition of the Negroes. 
Classical education for the race was everywhere recognized 
to have failed. 43 The citizenship that had been given them 
had proved their detriment. 44 The campaign for social 
equality had been even more injurious to the Negroes and 
had proved even more of a failure. 40 The discussion of 
the Negroes' political status had served only to alienate the 
sympathy of the white man without resulting in any gain 
to the Negroes. 46 Antagonizing the white man, bewailing the 
fate of the Negroes, and blaming others for their pitiable 
condition, did not improve the situation. 47 The industrial 
movement was based on a recognition of the facts and a 
knowledge of the conditions. There was a frank recognition 
of the failure of the earlier program, an honest admission 
of the Negroes' defects of character, 48 an honest admission 
of the fact that the Negroes lacked not opportunity so 
much as energy and intelligence to take advantage of their 
opportunities ; there was a recognition that cooperation 
between the races was necessary if the Negroes were to 

43 Just as the ideal of literary training for primitive people has every- 
where failed to produce satisfactory results. "The defect of a primarily 
literary training lies in the fact that it distracts attention from the real 
intellectual needs of a race. ... It ordinarily leads to a dangerous half- 
education implying a well-trained memory but an undeveloped judg- 
ment, together with an overweening self-confidence and vanity. . . ." 
Paul S. Reinsch, Colonial Administration, pp. 49-50. 

44 Washington, The Future of the American Negro, p. 65. 

48 Booker T. Washington, "Let Down Your Buckets Where You Are," 
Address delivered at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, Georgia, 
September 18, 1895. Reprinted in Booker T. Washington, Up From 
Slavery: Autobiography, pp. 217-37. 

46 Hubert H. Bancroft, The New Pacific, pp. 606-7. 
Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, pp. 205-6. 

47 See Edward Ingle, The Negro in the District of Columbia, p. 42. 
"Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, pp. 204-5. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 355 

prove themselves desirable members of society. 49 It was a 
movement from within the race and the section of the coun- 
try affected. 

Washington and Tuskegee were selected to symbolize the 
movement which has come to be the most important factor 
working for the development of the Negro. The movement 
helped to build up a self-respecting and useful group of 
successful farmers, mechanics, tradesmen, teachers, and the 
like who were not ashamed of their work or of their color. 50 
It did, in a constructive and positive way, what the policy 
of segregation was doing in a negative way. 51 The Negro 
began to buy land and to assume a fixed habitation. To 
the extent that he did so, he became an independent and 
self-respecting man and an asset to the community in which 
he lived. 52 As this self-respecting class grew in numbers, 
wealth, and importance, it formed the nucleus about which 
the race could unite. It was the basis for a nationality. 
As the spirit of race pride and race consciousness and pride 
of accomplishment increased, there was an increasing tend- 
ency to race separation and consequently to the develop- 
ment of the bi-racial type of adjustment. 

Meanwhile, and from a diametrically opposite direction, 
the policy of segregation operated to build up an independ- 
ent Negro group. The segregation of the Negroes in many 
of the relations of life had, at the desire of the Negroes 

49 McCord, The American Negro as a Defective, Dependent and Delin- 
quent, p. 125. 

50 The opponents of Mr. Washington deny that there is a "scintilla 
of evidence to show that the increase in these ventures and in property 
owning by Negroes is due solely or even mainly to the influence of in- 
dustrial and agricultural education." V. P. Thomas, The Crisis, July, 
1913, p. 145. 

51 Booker T. Washington, The Story of the Negro, Vol. 1, p. 31. 
82 See Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 204. 



356 The Mulatto in the United States 

themselves, taken place long before the Emancipation. With 
the freedom of the slaves came more voluntary segregation 
and, as the South began to recover from the financial effects 
of the War and the Reconstruction, came legal separation 
in more and more lines. With the disappearance of the 
older generation of slaves and slave-masters and the ap- 
pearance of a newer generation containing many idle, in- 
solent, and dangerously criminal Negroes, the legal separa- 
tion of the races was adopted as a matter of police protec- 
tion. It served to avoid the constant conflicts resulting 
from the contact of the rougher classes of the two races. 53 
It kept apart the ignorant and the vicious of the two races 
and so made for harmony in the racial life of the com- 
munity. 54 Residential segregation always had been the rule, 
but the desire to get away from the rougher and more ig- 
norant classes and to be among the whites led certain pros- 
perous and ambitious Negroes and mulattoes to move into 
white residential districts. Whether the motives impelling 
such actions on the part of the Negroes was a desire to 
assert their equality with the whites, or the perfectly laud- 
able desire to live in better localities and to get their chil- 
dren away from the moral dangers which surrounded the 
predominantly Negro districts, their presence was equally 
offensive to the white residents. The uniform result of such 
actions on the part of the Negroes was the withdrawal of 
the whites, the consequent depreciation in the value of the 
property, and the section becoming a Negro settlement. 
Legal residential segregation grew up in order to restrain, 

53 In New Orleans, for example, where there existed a large number 
of free mulattoes, separate accommodations were provided long before 
the War. 

B4 McCord, The American Negro as a Dependent, Defective and Delin- 
quent, p. 273. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 357 

not the mass of the race but the ambitious Negroes and 
mulattoes who desired to escape from the race and asso- 
ciate with, and live among, the whites. 

As the practice of racial segregation spread, it was pres- 
ently seen that, in some ways at least, it was proving a 
real help to the Negroes. It kept the race together, pre- 
vented the loss by the race of its superior and talented 
individuals. It forced the Negroes back upon themselves, 
forced them to rely more upon themselves and less upon 
the whites, and it forced them to develop and to manage 
their own institutions and to develop their own social and 
economic life. 55 As they were forced to become more self- 
dependent, they gained in self-confidence and consequently 
in self-respect. In a negative way, the practice of segre- 
gation combined with the industrial and agricultural educa- 
tional policy to build up an independent and self-reliant 
peasantry and middle-class group. Before the Negroes lay 
the greatest economic opportunity ever offered to the peas- 
antry of any country in the world. The educational leaders 
sought to impress this fact upon the race ; the segregation 
policy forced the Negroes to embrace the opportunity be- 
fore them. To the extent that the Negroes became settled 
and industrious, they became prosperous. As they became 
prosperous they became contented, law-abiding, and valu- 
able men in the community. Consequently, the segregation 
policy was further extended and advocated, 56 not alone as 
a defensive measure and because of the harmony it gave in 
the affairs of the races, but as the most effective legal 

55 E. G. Murphy, The Schools of the People. Evans, Black and 
White in the Southern States, p. 156. 

M Frequently by the Negroes. For example: "Let us as a race not 
wait for the Caucasian to force us but let us segregate voluntarily in 
every particular. The white man has suggested it and now let us fol- 



358 The Mulatto in the United States 

method, so far discovered, to help the Negroes to help them- 
selves. 

With the growth of a middle-class, chiefly through the 
operation of these two factors, and its increase in numbers 
and in importance in the affairs of the race, there is coming 
to be a new and a radically different type of adjustment 
between the races in the South. 57 This new adjustment 
tends to be a bi-racial one: a vertical division on race lines. 
The two races are separate in all those relations where 
opportunity for conflict seems likely to arise between indi- 
vidual members, and in all things social or that remotely 
imply social equality. Their residence districts are apart. 
They have separate accommodations when they travel. 
Their schools, churches, lodges, and places of entertainment 
and amusement are separate and distinct. Each race has 
its own organizations, and manages its own affairs. They 
cooperate or oppose each other as races on matters affect- 
ing the relations of the races. In matters of mutual con- 
cern, a conference between the representatives or leaders 
of the two races arranges for cooperative action. Each is 
held responsible for the individual behavior of the members 
of its own group. They may work for the same ends, inde- 
pendently but cooperatively ; except, however, in the strictly 

low it up. His prescription [proscription?] and boycotting will help us 
to get together, if we have an ounce of race pride." The Conservative 
Counselor, Waco, Texas, 9-2-1915. See, also, "Editorial Comment," The 
A fro- American, Baltimore, Maryland, 12-11-1915. 

This view is of course almost as superficial as that of the militant 
mulattoes who violently oppose every tendency toward segregation. Both 
are surface views. The real ground on which the policy is to be de- 
fended, from the Negroes' point of view, is indicated below. See pp. 
390 ff. Residential segregation was declared unconstitutional by a 
ruling of the United States Supreme Court 11-5-1917. 

67 The bi-racial adjustment is of course not anywhere complete; it is 
in the process of becoming. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 359 

business relation of employer and employee, the races need 
not come into contact ; they remain separate groups. They 
live a life apart, beside each other and yet separate in all 
the affairs of social and community life. 

The bi-racial arrangement — the separation of the Negroes 
from the whites and their independence in many of the 
affairs of life — created a need and supplied a place for the 
superior men of the race. Under the earlier conditions, the 
Negroes had looked to the whites as the superior and edu- 
cated class and depended upon them for advice and lead- 
ership ; they uniformly preferred the services of white pro- 
fessional and business men to the services of the professional 
and business men of their own race. To the extent that the 
races became separated and the Negroes gained in inde- 
pendence and developed a sense of racial pride and self- 
reliance, there was a place for an educated class within the 
race ; there was a need for teachers and preachers, for physi- 
cians and lawyers, for business men and entertainers, and 
for all the host of other parasitic and semi-parasitic classes 
that go to make up a modern community. With the rise 
of a middle-class, the race was able to support a profes- 
sional and leisure class ; previously the educated Negro was 
an idler and a parasite. The isolation of the race forced 
the Negroes to depend upon their own educated men and 
so made a place for such men. 

Within the Negro group and catering to their own peo- 
ple, the men superior by nature, by virtue of education, 
because of special training, because of natural shrewdness, 
because of the possession of property or by virtue of the 
possession of the elements of natural leadership, became the 
leaders of the race. The separation of the races freed the 
Negro professional and business men from the competition 
of the better trained and more efficient white men and con- 



360 The Mulatto in the United States 

sequently gave them an opportunity to rise out of all pro- 
portion to their native ability and training. The plane of 
competition became one on which they could hope to suc- 
ceed. The older — the slave and reconstruction plan of ad- 
justment — was an accommodation on horizontal lines. The 
white man was at the top, the black man was at the bot- 
tom. It was a caste distinction that prevented the rise of 
the capable individual out of his group. In the newer ar- 
rangement, the opportunity to rise was limited only by 
the ability and the industry of the individual man. There 
was no superior caste above him. 

As has been previously pointed out in detail, the superior 
men of the race are, with scarcely the proverbial exception, 
mulattoes. 58 The segregation of the Negroes, the rise of 
a middle-class, and the consequent bi-racial adjustment of 
the races thus have made a place and furnished a vocation 
for the mulattoes. Unable to escape the race and unable 
to constitute a caste above the race, they remained with 
the race and became its real leaders. 59 They are the pro- 
fessional and business men of the race. They are the 
leaders in all the racial and inter-racial affairs. The bi- 
racial arrangement gives the mulatto the opportunity for 
a useful life and, at the same time, it allows him to remain 

88 J. R. Brackett, The Negro in Maryland, p. 94. 

00 ". . . Although resenting a classification which they consider illogi- 
cal and unnatural, they have never been given any choice in the matter 
and they have, at last, come to acquiesce in the arrangement. What 
is the result? It is leading to the unification of all A fro- Americans as 
no personal inclination or mutual persuasion could have done. The 
'colored' (mulatto) class, which contains the most intelligent and ambi- 
tious men of the race, has deliberately thrown its lot with the black, 
and set itself to the task of educating and training them for the great 
struggle which they believe is to come. . . ." W. P. Livingstone, "The 
West Indian and the American Negro," North American Review, Vol. 
185, p. 646. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 361 

superior to his black fellows. 

These Southern mulatto leaders, however, are men who, 
at least outwardly, consider themselves Negroes. 60 They 
are men who have given up, in practice if not in theory, 
the hopeless struggle for social recognition by the whites 
and identified themselves with the black group. 61 Their 
status is fixed ; they are members of the Negro race. Social 
equality with the whites is out of the question and the de- 
nial of it ceases to disturb them. The success they make 
in life is in another direction and the amount of it depends 
upon themselves. They are men who have concealed, if they 
have not succeeded in overcoming, their aversion for the 
black man. They do not openly flaunt their superiority 
because of their white blood, and they find their life and 
their work among their darker and more backward fellows. 
The mulattoes, for the most part Southern mulattoes, have, 
in this new adjustment of the races, found their place as 
the real and natural leaders of the race. They are the 
men who teach the black man in the schools and in the 
Negro colleges, who preach to him from the pulpits, who 
manage his banks and business enterprises, who rise to prom- 
inence in all the social, political, and economic affairs of 

80 "I love my people and prefer to live among them. I am not ashamed 
of being a Negro." C. V. Roman, "Racial Self-respect and Racial 
Antagonism," Atlanta Congress, 1913, p. 445. 

61 The condition of the mulatto or educated Negro who has not yet 
reached this point in his development appears everywhere in the writings 
of the mulattoes. For example: ". . . there is to my mind no more 
pathetic side to this many sided question than the isolated position into 
which are forced the very colored people who most need and could best 
appreciate sympathetic cooperation; [the educated and upper classes] 
and their position grows tragic when the effort is made to couple them, 
whether or no, with the Negroes of the first class I mentioned [the 
lower classes]." Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-colored Man, 
p. 78. 



362 The Mulatto in the United States 

the race. They, too, are the men who rob and defraud him 
in the lodges, who grow wealthy, through appealing to the 
Negro's desire to be like the white man, with nostrums to 
blanch the skin and straighten the hair, who gain wealth 
and distinction among their race by fostering, and catering 
to, the Negro's morbid interest in and superstitious fear 
of death and love of vulgar funeral display. But whether 
they guide and help the black man or fatten on his gulli- 
bility? they are in every respect the prominent men of the 
race and the leaders in the race's social affairs. Whether 
1 hey are engaged in robbing the black man, preaching to 
him, healing his sick or burying his dead, and in spite of 
their concealed dislike and their contempt for the degraded 
black man, the mulattoes are endeavoring to raise him to 
a higher mental, moral, and industrial plane. 

The organization takes on the form of a primary group 
relation. From the similarity of life and activities, comes 
a similarity of sentiments and ideas. The mulattoes and 
other superior men become an integral part of the race, de- 
sirous of a respected place in the thoughts of the group, 
and ambitious for an honored place in its counsels. The 
mulatto feels himself in alliance with the group and in the 
cooperation of common activities there arises a sympa- 
thetic understanding and appreciation which fuses the mu- 
latto, in sentiments and attitudes, with the larger whole. 
He is identified with the black group, feels the mute long- 
ing of the common folk, feels himself a part of it, is moulded 
by it, and comes, little by little, to realize himself as a 
factor in the common life and purpose of the group. He 
ceases to be, in thought and feeling, a stranger among his 
people; he learns to appreciate them, ceases to be ashamed 
of his relationship to them, ceases to resent being classed 
with them. Their problems become his problems ; their life, 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 368 

his life. The mulatto thus ceases to be a problem within 
a problem; he becomes a functioning unit in the social life 
of an evolving people. r 

In the South, as elsewhere among the Negro people, the 
mulattoes enjoy a prestige because of their color; the Ne- 
groes readily accept them as superior men. The condi- 
tions of life for the Negroes are decidedly easier in the 
South than in other sections of the country and this is 
especially the case for the mulattoes and other men of busi- 
ness and professional training. 62 To the extent that they 
do a work for the good of the race and live an honest and 
industrious life, they are helped by the white man and do 
not have to meet his competition. Race prejudice and dis- 
crimination are less clearly manifested 63 than in sections 
of the country where the struggle for professional exist- 
ence is somewhat more severe, and where the tolerance of 
racial shortcomings is less evident. There is no lack of 

02 It is to be remembered, of course, that in competition, the Southern 
trained Negro has proven his equality if not his superiority to the North- 
ern trained Negro. See G. E. Haynes, The Negro at Work in New 
York City, pp. 50 ff. 

63 E. R. Turner, The Negro in Pennsylvania, p. 149. 
Editorial, The Free Lance, 11-6-1915. 

"Despite evidences of racial friction which crop out here and there, 
the relations existing between the individual Negro and the individual 
white man are often closer and better understood and more sympa- 
thetic than those obtaining in any community outside of the South." 
Booker T. Washington, The Southern Workman, quoted from the Chi- 
cago Defender, 12-19-1914. 

"For years after the war the North went into a frenzy, especially 
during political campaigns, over outrages, real and alleged, upon their 
colored fellow-citizens in the South. In the North to-day the Negro 
has less chance to gain a livelihood above the very humblest levels than 
he had twenty-five years ago, and only in rare instances does education 
beyond the prime essentials benefit him in his struggles upward." 
Boston Traveller, 11-15-1915. 



364 The Mulatto in the United States 

opportunity. There are fewer men in proportion to the num- 
ber of the race who are trained and it is proportionately 
easier for the men of a little training and ability to rise 
to positions of importance within the group. The superior 
education of the mulattoes qualifies them for leadership ; 
their superior ambition and greater self-confidence pushes 
them to the front. The mulatto, even though only slightly 
superior, is assured of success once he has cast his lot with 
the Negro people. His role on the Southern situation is 
the role of leadership. 

The role of leadership is, of course, a peculiarly difficult 
one ; the Negroes do not readily follow their own best leaders. 
The mass of the Negroes are ignorant, untrained in self- 
direction, and not awake to the importance of self-help and 
cooperative association. They are pretty generally unre- 
liable and subconsciously recognize their own unreliability; 
bitter experience has made them more suspicious and dis- 
trustful of their own race than of the white. Petty jeal- 
ousies among the leaders themselves are continually break- 
ing out into factional strife. Public spirit and pride of race 
is still more a hope of certain individuals than a realiza- 
tion of the masses. It is the problem of the leaders of the 
race to organize this ignorant and distrustful peasant peo- 
ple, replace a bizarre idea of education by saner ones, 
teach them the need of industry and morality, and lead 
them to a respect for, and a belief in, their own race. 

In those sections of the country where the Negroes are 
relatively less numerous, they have in general not been 
legally assigned a definite racial status in the community 
life. No special provisions have been made for their edu- 
cation. There are no restrictions on their place of resi- 
dence. They are free to intermarry and otherwise associate 
with individuals of a different racial extraction to the extent 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 365 

of their desire and opportunity. There has been a refusal 
on the part of the .white people to recognize publicly the 
presence of the Negroes as constituting a problem distinct 
from other social problems of the community life. 64 The 
policy has been rather to ignore their presence and to leave 
them to accommodate themselves individually as best they 
may to the social situation. Ostensibly at least, they stand 
on the same legal and social footing as other members of 
the population. 

As a consequence of the absence of any restrictive or 
other legislation applying particularly to the Negro people, 
their greater individual freedom of choice and action, there 
is a less definite and uniform accommodation between the 
races and more of individual variation from the usual mode. 
The conditions of life, however, are markedly more difficult. 
There is more of prejudice and active discrimination in 
economic and industrial relations. The individual relations 
between members of the races are in general marked by 
less of personal friendliness ; there is not the good-natured 
expectation of inefficiency and toleration of shiftlessness 
which marks the relations of the races in the South. 65 The 
Negro is in individual competition with men of the other 
race, and, in general, he has to measure up to their stand- 
ard of efficiency and reliability in order to secure and 
retain employment. Among the Negro people of the North, 
therefore, there is more failure, dissatisfaction, complaint, 
more bitterness, more enforced idleness, more distress,- pov- 
erty, and crime than in those sections of the country where 
the Negroes do not come into direct individual competition 

64 It has not, of course, been possible to live up to any such theory. 
See the Negro Year Book, pp. 365-67. 

85 This is due in large part to the fact that in the North the Negro 
is in the city, whereas in the South he is more generally a rural man. 



366 The Mulatto in the United States 

with better trained and more energetic and ambitious rivals. 
Among those who have succeeded, however, there are more 
examples of conspicuous individual success, as measured 
by white standards, than where the competition is racial 
and not individual. The struggle for success is more diffi- 
cult, the failures are more numerous, but the rewards of 
success are greater. 

There is among the Negroes in the North an absence of 
unity and race solidarity. ' The numbers of the race are 
relatively small, widely scattered, unorganized, and without 
a common interest. It is predominantly an urban popula- 
tion and stands for the most part as a population of un- 
skilled laborers dependent for the means of livelihood upon 
white employers; 06 Their tendency to congregate in one 
or a few sections of the cities and towns gives an appearance 
of unity which in reality does not exist; the residential 
segregation is a matter of economic necessity rather than 
a matter of choice. The race is divided into innumerable 
antagonistic groups, societies, orders, factions, cliques, and 
what not, endless in number and puzzling in complexity, 
whose mutual jealousy and distrust prevent any united, co- 
operative action. There is no leadership that has any con- 
siderable following and no program for racial progress that 
has the assent of more than a faction of the Negro group ; 
there is nothing to hold the various factions together and 
the group is without any semblance of organized unity. 

The superior men of the race, even more than in the 
South, are mulattoes. There is not, certainly, always a 
sharp and complete separation; there are occasional blacks 
among the educated section and by no means all the mu- 






06 



See, for example, A. P. Comstock, "Chicago Housing Conditions: 
VI. The Problem of the Negro," The American Journal of Sociology, 
Vol. 18, pp. 241-57. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 367 

lattoes are in the non-laboring classes. But the occupa- 
tional differentiation is pretty complete. Speaking gener- 
ally, the successful group is a light-colored group, while 
the great uneducated mass is dark. Moreover, the individ- 
uals who have risen markedly above their fellows in suc- 
cess in any line are, with rarely an exception, mulattoes. 
The successful professional and business man are in almost 
every case men of mixed blood and generally men of rela- 
tively little Negro admixture. The same thing is true of 
the men prominent in every line of work. In education, the 
mulattoes are almost the only members of the Negro com- 
munity who avail themselves of the school opportunities 
beyond the legal minimum. The prominent and educated 
men and women of the race are mulattoes and the mulatto 
group as a whole occupies a higher economic and intellec- 
tual status than do the darker colored groups. 

The Northern mulattoes are, however, in spite of their 
superior education and position, without a definite role in 
the inter-racial life of the community. More than in the 
Southern section of the country, the mulattoes are separated 
in fact and in sympathy from the mass of the race. They 
are proud of their European blood, their smoother features, 
their "better" hair and their higher economic status; they 
are not always careful to conceal the fact. Frequently 
they live apart from the Negro community, find their social 
life among others of their kind, attend white churches or 
form congregations of their own class and color. 67 The 
upper class mulattoes are frequently without much acquaint- 
ance with the real Negroes. In their professional or busi- 
ness life, they are separated from the mass of the race and 
come often into very little contact with them even in a busi- 

67 See E. H. Abbott, "The South and the Negro," The Outlook, Vol. 
77, pp. 367 ff. 



368 The Mulatto in the United States 

ness way. Their idea of the Negro and their attitude to- 
ward him, is the idea and the attitude of the white man. 
The attitude is one of more or less kindly toleration and 
mild contempt which changes to active discrimination and 
positive hatred when the Negro assumes the attitude of an 
equal and seeks the privilege of social equality. In their 
public utterances the Negro may be idealized, but there is 
no desire or disposition on the part of the mulatto to have 
any intimate association with him. 

Yet the mulattoes assume the role of spokesman for the 
race; they undertake to represent the Negro and to speak 
for him. Their superior education, their higher economic 
status as well as their greater individual success, and their 
more prominent position give plausibility to their assump- 
tion of leadership and allow them, rather than men who are 
closer to the race and better able to voice the feelings and 
attitudes of the inarticulate mass, to get themselves accepted 
as representatives of the Negroes. They appear as cham- 
pions of the Negro at all times when there is profit or noto- 
riety to be gained by so doing. They make incendiary 
speeches, draw up petitions and protests, appear before leg- 
islative and executive committees as the representatives of a 
people they only imperfectly represent. They are the men 
Mr. Washington had in mind when he wrote: 68 

. . . there are others who claim that the Negro is 
too submissive. The latter insist that, if he had the 
courage to stand up and denounce his detractors in the 
same harsh and bitter terms that these persons use to- 
ward him, in a short time he would win the respect 
of the world, and the only obstacle to his progress 
would be removed. 

It is interesting, sometimes amusing, and sometimes 



rs 



The Story of the Negro, Vol. 1, pp. 190-91. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 36b 

even pathetic, to note the conception of "bravery" and 
"courage" which some colored men, who put their faith 
in this solution of the Negro problem, occasionally ap- 
ply to other members of their race. For a long time 
after freedom came, and the same is not infrequently 
true at the present time, any black man who was will- 
ing, either in print or in public speech, to curse and 
abuse the white man, easily gained for himself a repu- 
tation of great courage. He might spend thirty min- 
utes or an hour once a year in that kind of "vindica- 
tion" of his race, but he got the reputation of being 
an exceedingly brave man. Another man, who worked 
patiently and persistently for } ;r ears in a Negro school, 
depriving himself of many of the comforts and necessi- 
ties of life, in order to perform a service which would 
uplift his race, gained no reputation for courage. On 
the contrary, he was likely to be denounced as a coward 
by the "heroes," because he chose to do his work with- 
out cursing, without abuse, and without complaint. 

The larger part of the present-day discussion of inter- 
race matters, the agitations for social and political rights 
and privileges, the fulminations against discriminations, 
the exaggerations of real and fancied wrongs, is not the 
work of Negroes. It is a small, widely scattered, light- 
colored and largely deracialized group of mulattoes who have 
not found their place in the bi-racial community life — who 
refuse to be Negroes and are refused the opportunity to be 
white — whose sentiments and attitudes find expression in 
the present-day agitations. The bitter, abusive tone of so 
much present-day Negro literature does not voice the atti- 
tude of the Negro ; the real Negro is remarkably free from 
bitterness. The rank and file are intimately concerned with 
the daily problem of earning a living; they accept the social 
situation and their place therein more as a matter of fact 
than as a hardship. The abstract rights for which certain 



370 The Mulatto in the United States 

individuals and groups within the race contend interest 
them very little or not at all. The Negroes have given very 
little support to the so-called radical movements. 69 A na- 
tive common sense leads them to a half-conscious recognition 
of the futility of systematically antagonizing the race upon 
which they are so largely dependent. The trend of senti- 
ment has been away from, rather than towards, an advocacy 
of rights and privileges which they are not in a position to 
demand and which the opposite race seems less and less in- 
clined to bestow upon them. There has been a pretty gen- 
eral acceptance by the more intelligent Negroes in all sec- 
tions of the country of the Southern point of view. 70 

The agitations of the mulatto groups and individuals 
are, for obvious reasons, carried on in the name of the 
Negro, not in the name of the mulatto. The ends to be 
reached are such as concern the real Negroes very little. 
The agitations voice the bitterness of the superior mulat- 
toes, of the deracialized men of education, culture, and re- 
finement who resent and rebel against the intolerant social 
edict that excludes them from white society and classes 
them with the despised race. The demands resolve them- 
selves in last analysis into a demand that all race distinc- 
tions be blotted out and that each man be accepted on the 
basis of his individual merit irrespective of his race or 

89 The National Association for the Advancement of the Colored Peo- 
ple, the chief present-day association concerned with the political rights 
and the social ambitions of the Negroes, claims a membership of only 
9,500. Of this membership many, perhaps the great majority, are white 
persons. Certainly the organization has always been financed and largely 
managed by white persons. See The Crisis, 3-1916, p. 225. 

70 Many leading Negroes who were earlier identified with the move- 
ment in opposition to the policies of Booker T. Washington, later went 
over to the constructive point of view. See, for e.g., John Daniels, In 
Freedom's Birthplace, p. 128. 



Role of the Mulatto in the United States 371 

color. 71 The result of the adoption of such a policy would 
be, of course, to allow the exceptional men of the race, that 
is the mulattoes, to escape from it and be accepted by and 
absorbed into the white race. The demands of the militant 
mulattoes thus amount to a plea for special privilege; it 
is a plea for themselves and not for the Negroes. They ask 
the opportunity to escape from the race toward which they 
feel much the same prejudice as does the white man/ 5 They 
are Negroes only by compulsion. 

The inter-racial situation in the North is thus, in very 
large part, a caste arrangement. The mulattoes are the 
superior men and form, or tend to form, a separate and ex- 
clusive class above the race. They assume the role of 
spokesman for the race but they are not an integral part of 
it as are the mulatto leaders of the South. The Negroes 
resent, more or less, the mulattoes' assumption of superior- 
ity and their presuming to speak for a race with whom 
they neither live nor associate. At the same time, it is the 
desire of every ambitious Negro to secure admittance to 
the more exclusive circles and to escape from the black 
group. The mulattoes are rather outside the race, above 
it. They have not given up the hope of equality with the 
whites ; they are not satisfied to be Negroes and to find their 
life and their work among the members of the race. They 
are contemptuous of the blacks who are socially below them 
and envious of the whites who are socially above them. The 
accommodation of the races is on horizontal lines with the 
educated and light-colored mulattoes standing between the 
blacks and the whites. 

The arrangement, however, seems to lack the elements 
of permanence. The realization of the mulattoes' ambi- 

71 See, for example, "Editorial," The Crisis, 2-1914, pp. 186-87. Also, 
Katherine B. Davis, The Crisis, 6-1914, pp. 83-84, 



372 The Mulatto in the United States 

tion is dependent upon a change of attitude on the part of 
the white population. Their recognition of the mulatto 
as superior to the black Negro would insure the perma- 
nence of the mulatto caste ; it would give it a recognized 
place in the society. 72 Their granting of the demands for 
a complete removal of all distinctions based on race or 
color would allow the escape from the race of the superior 
and light colored individuals. 73 But curiously enough the 
rebellious attitude of the militant mulattoes against the 
habitual attitude of the white group and their agitations 
against discriminations, whether carried on by themselves 
or by their white sympathizers, which have for their real 
though seldom openly avowed and sometimes not consciously 
understood purpose the allowing of the superior, educated 
mulattoes to escape from the Negro race and to be absorbed 
into the white race — their protests and complaints and cam- 
paigns of bitterness and abuse — have an effect quite differ- 
ent from that desired. It tends to defeat its own object 74 
and works ultimately to the profit of the Negro group as a 
whole rather than to that of the protesting group. Instead 
of influencing the white man to recognize the mulattoes as 
a superior type of man and to accept them on a rating dif- 
ferent from that on which he accepts the mass of the race 
— as an individual regardless of race or color — the effect 
is to identify the complaining individuals more closely with 
the masses of the race; it tends to solidify the race and, 
in the thinking of the white man, to class the agitators with 
it. Its effect is not to break down the white man's antipathy 
and prejudice, but to make the feeling more acute and to 

" The Jamaican solution of the race problem. See pp. 331-35 above. 
"The Brazilian solution of the problem. See pp. 320-24 above. 
74 A fact frequently recognized by the Negroes themselves. See, for 
e.g., The Kansas (City) Elevator (A Negro Paper), 2-2-1916. 






Role of the Mulatto in the United States 373 

make more conscious and distinct the determination of the 
white people to preserve their ideals of racial and social 
purity. 75 It results in a stricter and a more conscious 
and purposeful drawing of the color line and a drawing of 
the line where it had previously not been drawn. In the 
elfort to escape the race, the mulattoes become more than 
ever identified with it. 76 The segregation policy which ex- 
ists in all lines everywhere in the South and less openly 
and frankly but frequently not less effectively in the North 
wherever the Negroes are numerous and troublesome, is in 
large part a reaction on the part of the white people against 
the militant mulattoes' efforts to achieve social equality 
with the whites. 

Both the mulattoes and the Negroes stand to profit in 
the end by the agitation of the radical mulatto group for 
social and class recognition. The struggle for abstract 
rights is not productive of any important results in the 
way of removing racial prejudice or social discrimination; 
it has rather the contrary tendency. But it serves to iden- 
tify the mulatto with the race and this is an advantage 
both to the black and to the yellow man. The black Negroes 
are the gainers by having their natural leaders thrust, 
even though it be against their will, back upon the race. 
The mulattoes are gainers in that they are thus forced to 
see and to embrace the great opportunity which the pres- 
ence of the people of their own race affords them for a 
useful and a valuable life of real leadership. The horizon- 

76 "Race Separation Without Discrimination," Outlook, Vol. 86, p. 576. 

79 Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, p. 208. 

"... I am in grave doubt as to whether the greater part of the fric- 
tion in the South is caused by the whites having a natural antipathy 
to Negroes as a race, or an acquired antipathy to Negroes in certain 
relations to themselves." Johnson, The Autobiography of an Ex-colored 
Man, p. 78. 



374 The Mulatto in the United States 

tal accommodation — the caste system — of the North seems 
destined ultimately to transform itself, as the earlier caste 
system of the South has already largely done, into a ver- 
tical accommodation — a bi-racial system. 






CHAPTER XIV 



summary: present tendencies 



IN summarizing this study, emphasis should be placed 
on the fact that it has had to do with the mulatto as a 
social group rather than as a biological type. Mixture 
of blood, however important or unimportant it may be in 
itself, has not been the subject of inquiry and there is no 
assumption concerning its good or ill effects. But mixture 
of blood has been made the basis of class and caste distinc- 
tions. As a result of these distinctions — and possibly be- 
cause of their mixed ethnic origin — various groups, physi- 
cally distinguishable because of their mixed ancestry, have 
appeared, manifest a peculiar psychology and play a dis- 
tinctive role in various inter-racial situations. It is with 
the status of one of these groups — the mulatto in the United 
States — with which this study has had principally to do. 
Without predicating or assuming anything with regard to 
the inherent mental superiority, inferiority, or equality of 
the members of the mixed-blood group, as compared with 
either element of their ethnic ancestry, inquiry was made 
concerning their origin and increase in numbers, their sta- 
tus in the general social situation, and their role in the 
inter-racial community life. So far as there has been any 
unavoidable presupposition concerning inherent mental ra- 
cial capacity, it has been the presupposition of approxi- 
mately equal mental possibility among the various human 
types and that such inequalities as may be found existent, 

375 



376 The Mulatto m the United States 

culturally or otherwise, are rationally explainable on the 
assumption of inferior racial opportunity. 

As preliminary to the main topic of inquiry, a survey 
was made of the chief of the mixed-blood groups which have 
appeared in other bi-racial situations. This survey was 
necessarily brief and, owing to the scanty, defective and 
frequently contradictory nature of the data available con- 
cerning these groups, the conclusions are highly tentative. 
In general, however, it may be said that mixed-blood indi- 
viduals have appeared everywhere when two racial groups 
representing different cultural stages have been brought 
into contact. The size of these mixed-blood groups seems 
to have been dependent upon the races in contact, the rela- 
tive numbers of the advanced and backward groups, the 
presence or absence of women of the advanced group and 
the class of the advanced in contact with the backward 
race. These mixed-blood groups are everywhere the result 
of illicit relations between the men of the superior and the 
women of the inferior group. Everywhere the women of 
lower races, if not actually seeking sexual relations with 
the men of the advanced race, nowhere show any pronounced 
repugnance to such association. The mixed-bloods as a 
group everywhere have formed, or tended to form, or been 
formed, into a separate class or caste standing somewhere 
between the two parent races. Judged from the point of 
view of the superior race, they have reached everywhere a 
social position superior to that of the mother race and 
nowhere have they achieved a position of equality with the 
advanced group. The superior individuals who have ap- 
peared among the lower racial groups have been, almost 
without exception, members of this mixed-blood class. The 
ambition of the mixed-bloods seems everywhere an ambition 
to be accepted into the advanced race and to escape from 



Summary. Present Tendencies 377 

the lower group. Their actual role in the inter-racial sit- 
uation is consequently dependent upon the attitude of the 
dominant group. Where no social color line has been for- 
mally drawn against them, they have tended to identify 
themselves with the superior race and themselves to draw a 
color line against the lower race or else to serve as a 
physiological tie between the extremes of the population 
during the process of its reduction to a mongrel unity. 
Where a color line has been drawn against them by the 
superior group in the population, they everywhere have 
tended to form an intermediate caste in the population. 
Where this caste has been more or less frankly recognized, 
it serves as a harmonizing group between the population 
extremes. Where it has not been recognized by the superior 
race, the caste seldom has been able to maintain itself and 
the mixed-blood individuals tend to unite their interests 
with, and become an upper-class among, the lower group. 

Passing, then, to the mulatto in the United States, it was 
found that the intermixture of the races had gone on during 
the whole period that the races have been in contact on 
American soil. This mixture was particularly rapid during 
the colonial era owing to the scarcity of women of the white 
race and owing to the fact that the lack of any intolerant 
racial prejudice allowed the lower classes to associate, and 
freely intermix, with the Negro women. The mixture prob- 
ably somewhat decreased during the period of national 
slavery owing to a bitter hatred that grew up between the 
Negroes and the lower-class whites and to the fact that the 
Negroes were under a stricter control. The intermixture 
also appears by statistical measurement to have gone on at 
a rate somewhat slower than was actually the case owing to 
the fact that much of it was with the mulatto rather than 
with the black girls. Since the Emancipation there has 






378 The Mulatto in the United States 

continued to be a rapid increase in the number of mulattoes. 

The intermixture of the races in the United States has 
been almost exclusively outside the bounds of the marriage 
union. There has been a little intermarriage between the 
races, generally between lower-class white women and Negro 
or mulatto men. The number of such marriages, however, 
has been so small as to be entirely negligible in the con- 
sideration of race mixture. There has been a much larger 
amount of concubinage of Negro girls by white men. This 
form of sex relation was common in some sections during 
the slave regime and still exists to some extent. The great 
amount of the intermixture, however, has been of the na- 
ture of temporary associations implying absolutely nothing 
in the way of sentimental attachment on either side and 
being in point of fact nothing more than a satisfaction of 
the physical appetite of the individuals concerned. This 
form of association at present is most frequently between 
mulatto men and black girls, on the one hand, and between 
white men and mulatto girls, on the other. 

As individuals, the mulattoes always have enjoyed op- 
portunities somewhat greater than those enjoyed by the 
rank and file of the black Negroes. In slavery days, they 
were most frequently the trained servants and had the ad- 
vantages of daily contact with cultured men and women. 
Many of them were free and so enjoyed whatever advan- 
tages went with that superior status. They were considered 
by the white people to be superior in intelligence to the 
black Negroes and came to take great pride in the fact of 
their white blood. They' developed a tradition of superi- 
ority. This idea was accepted by the black Negroes and 
consequently the mulattoes enjoyed a prestige in the Negro 
group. Where possible, they formed a sort of mixed-blood 
caste and held themselves aloof from the black Negroes and 



Summary: Present Tendencies 379 

the slaves of lower station. 

The mulattoes, at all times in the history of the Negro 
in America, have been the superior individuals of the race. 
Of the score or so of men of first-rate ability which the 
race has produced, not more than two at the most were 
Negroes of pure blood. Of the two hundred or so who have 
made the most noteworthy success in a business or profes- 
sional way, all, with less than a dozen exceptions, are Ne- 
groes of mixed blood. Of some two hundred and forty-six 
persons, presumably the most successful and the best known 
men the race has produced, at least thirteen-fourteenths of 
them are men of mixed blood. Of the list of six hundred 
and twenty-seven names of persons compiled from the his- 
torical and biographical literature and including men of 
a distinctly lesser degree of note, only about one-ninth were 
even of approximately pure blood. The same condition 
was found to prevail in the examination of compilations 
of the leading men in the various professional and semi- 
professional pursuits ; the professional men of the race are 
nearly all mulattoes as are the men who have succeeded in 
some form of artistic or semi-artistic endeavor. In the in- 
dustrial and business world the same condition prevails ; the 
men who have made any marked success are found to be 
in nearly every case from the mixed-blood group. It was 
further found that by taking large numbers of cases from 
any profession or pursuit and consequently tapping lower 
ranges of ability and success, the ratio of black men to mu- 
lattoes was increased. The higher the standard of success, 
the lower the per cent of full-blooded Negroes. This was 
the case as between different professions and within the 
ranks of the same profession ; the ministry has a much 
higher per cent of full-blood Negroes than does the medical 
or the teaching profession ; the higher positions in all the 



380 The Mulatto in the United States 

professions have been reached by mulattoes, very seldom 
by black Negroes. Speaking generally, the intellectual 
class of the race is composed of mulattoes ; a black man 
in the class is a rather rare exception. 

The role which these mixed-blood individuals have played 
in the inter-racial situation has varied with the time and 
the place. During the slavery period, they were the su- 
perior individuals ; but they were not leaders. In the decade 
just preceding the Civil War, a few persons of Negro blood 
took a minor part in the anti-slavery agitation. During the 
Reconstruction Period, they were in some cases used by the 
white politicians, but had little independent part. After 
the War and the Reconstruction, there was a further sepa- 
ration between the superior mulattoes and the mass of the 
race; the tendency for them to form a caste within or just 
above the Negro group continued. 

In the North, the mulattoes of education have tended 
to be agitators for equal social, civil, and political rights. 
They consider the ballot an inherent human right rather 
than an earned responsibility; consequently, they do not 
endeavor to fit the Negroes to meet the requirements of 
suffrage, but strive to force the abandonment of suffrage 
requirements. In social and civil affairs, they insist that 
equality of treatment is synonymous with identity of treat- 
ment. Their spirit is one of complaint and bitterness. They 
represent a grievance rather than a policy of constructive 
work. They emphasize what the law can do for the Negro 
and concern themselves very little with what the Negro can 
do for himself. They assume, moreover, the role of spokes- 
man for the race though, as a whole, they neither understand 
nor represent the Negro. They do not live with the Ne- 
groes ; they do not know the Negroes, and, in general, they 
do not know the condition of the race. They are widely 



Summary: Present Tendencies 381 

separated in appearance and in sympathy from the mass 
of the Negro people. They are not even in close touch with 
the mass of the Negroes in the Northern States. They have 
not, as yet, found themselves nor their place in the general 
social life of the community. 

In the South with the growth of industrial education and 
the rise of a middle-class within the Negro group, the mu- 
lattoes have taken their place as the natural leaders of the 
race. The bi-racial adjustment of the races has allowed 
the rise of men of superior ability and of training and has 
provided a place for them. These men are, in all but the ex- 
ceptional cases, mulattoes and generally men of more white 
than black blood. The teaching of these Southern mu- 
latto leaders is work and service. They emphasize what 
the Negroes can do to improve their condition and recog- 
nize that they will gain in efficiency and in strength of char- 
acter by overcoming obstacles. They are close to the Ne- 
gro; they are content to be classed with the race. They 
have abandoned any hope they may have entertained of 
being white men. They have their work and their place. 
Their social and consequently their psychological status 
is fixed, and there is, therefore, an almost entire absence of 
the bitterness which characterizes the Northern division of 

the mulatto group. 

***** 

Any race, or group within a race, which is subjected to 
discrimination or persecution tends to take on the form 
of a nationality. The natural bonds of union within are 
strengthened by the opposition from without. A race con- 
sciousness and a race pride tend to develop as a defensive 
reaction. The struggle of races and of race groups is 
not so much an economic struggle as it is a struggle for 
self-respect and race preservation. As the group or race 



382 The Mulatto in the United States 

in contact with one of superior culture itself advances to 
a degree of culture, the innate desire of the members to 
isolate themselves from unpleasant stimulation and to enjoy 
the association of others of their kind, becomes strength- 
ened by their consciousness that their presence is an unwel- 
come intrusion upon the desires of the other race. A de- 
veloping consciousness of worth reinforces the innate tend- 
ency and the prideful reaction. The ostracized group 
develops a pride of accomplishment in an effort to offset 
the feeling of inferiority which the rejection by the supe- 
rior group necessarily creates. The race or group escapes 
the unpleasant stimulation given by the latent or active 
hostility of the superior group by retiring within itself 
and endeavoring to become self-sufficient. This seems to 
be the tendency of the American Negro group in the pres- 
ent decade. 

The obstacles to racial solidarity among the American 
Negroes, however, are very numerous and very real. Their 
isolation is nowhere complete; geographically they are set- 
tled among a more numerous white population on which, 
in very large measure, they are economically and cultur- 
ally dependent. They lack a distinctive language, one of 
the most valuable focal points for the growth of such a 
sentimental complex, and, in the common language, there is 
no body of literature by members of the race that is in 
in any way distinctive, or in which a pride of achievement 
can center. Their religion is but a recent acquisition and 
in creed differs in no essential way from the religion of the 
white race. Their manners, customs, and habits of life 
are in no way distinctive. The race is without a history, 
or even a tradition of past greatness. Consequently, there 
are no historical names about which a popular tradition 
can grow. The only accomplishments of the race are mod- 



Summary: Present Tendencies 383 

ern ones ; a generation into the past brings them against 
the bleak fact of slavery and beyond that lies the age-long 
condition from which enslavement by a civilized race was 
a mighty step. Color, the peculiarity of physical type, 
is the obvious basis for their nationality. But color is 
everywhere correlated with primitive and degraded people; 
it is a thing from which to escape, not a thing of which to 
be proud. 

In spite, however, of the apparently insuperable obstacles 
in the way of a Negro nationality in America, the present 
tendency is clearly in that direction. It is toward an iden- 
tification of the various creeds and a union of the various 
classes in the race ; toward a feeling of pride in the growing 
accomplishments of the race and a consciousness of unity 
of interest. Whatever may be the limit that the tendency 
may finally reach, it is being promoted both designedly and 
undesignedly by both the whites and the blacks, and by 
forces from within and from without the race. 

The isolation of the race through voluntary action on 
its part and through legal action on the part of the white 
race, is the most important single fact making for class 
consciousness and race solidarity. This isolation of the race 
is not a recent phenomenon. It is the legal recognition and 
enforcement of the separation and the extension of it to 
include every line of contact and every individual of the race 
which is the characteristic feature of the present policy. 
The degree to which the races are admittedly separate is 
somewhat different in different regions. Where the numbers 
of the race are small and their activities have not conflicted 
with the white man's idea of what the Negroes' attitude 
and behavior should be, they have, except in the proscrip- 
tion against social equality, met with no serious difficulty 
I beyond the contempt-to-hatred attitude of their white neigh- 



384 The Mulatto in the United States 

bors. But wherever their numbers have become consider- 
able, or their attitude has become assertive, the Negroes 
have met the non-intercourse policy of the dominant white 
man. 

The present tendency is toward an increased application 
intensively and extensively of this segregation policy. Resi- 
dential segregation is w r ell-nigh universal. In the South, 
generally, it is enforced by state laws and city ordinances ; 
in the North, by various means depending upon the local 
conditions. 1 In the school, the Negro child is separated from 
the white in all the states having a considerable black pop- 
ulation. The number of Negro schools is increasing in the 
cities of the North. Where separate schools are not spe- 
cially provided, the residential segregation in the Northern 
cities usually confines the Negro children to one or a few 
schools. 2 The churches and church organizations are gen- 
erally separate and tend to become more independent in 
their development. The membership of most of the well- 
known secret societies is limited to white men. The clande- 
stine lodges of the Negroes under similar names have noth- 
ing in common with the white organizations except the 
names 3 and the Negroes have organized many secret so- 

1 In Chicago the most effective technique seems to be a gentleman's 
agreement among the real estate men. 

A recent ruling of the United States Supreme Court — November 5, , 
1917 — holds all residential segregation laws to be unconstitutional. It 
will be of interest to note in how far this decision will modify the 
present tendency. 

2 It is still an open question and one just beginning to be investigated 
scientifically, whether or not the difference in mental ability of the races 
is sufficiently great to warrant their separate education as a matter of 
economy and educational policy. See, for e.g., M. J. Mayo, The Mental 
Capacity of the American Negro. 

3 See G. W. Crawford, Prince Hall and His Followers, for a recent . 
effort by a mulatto to prove the legitimacy of Negro Masonry. 



Summary: Present Tendencies 385 

cieties under distinctive names. The social life of the races 
is everywhere separate and distinct. 4 Slowly the race is 
evolving its own group of business and professional men 
who cater exclusively to their own race while the white 
business and professional men tend to avoid the patronage 
of the Negroes. 5 In all lines and in all sections of the coun- 
try, the tendency of the white people seems to be to force 
the Negro people back upon themselves and to allow them 
or to force them to develop their own institutions and racial 
life. 

This policy on the part of the whites is supplemented by 
the desire of the rank and file of the Negroes themselves. 
A.n overwhelming majority of the Negroes accept racial 
separation as a simple and natural matter of fact. 6 It sel- 
lom concerns them in any concrete way and they are but 
ittle interested in abstract considerations. They live in 
Negro settlements as a matter of social choice and of eco- 
lomic necessity. They avail themselves thankfully of what- 
ever school facilities are offered them; other things being 
qual, they generally prefer the separate schools. 7 They 

4 See O. Madden, "A Color Phase of Washington," The World To-day, 
To\. 14, pp. 549-52. 

5 The largest department store in Chicago, for e.g., endeavors by in- 
ttentive treatment to discourage Negro patronage. 

See reference to Hartman Furniture Company in the Crisis, 4-1915, p. 
16. White bankers frequently refuse deposits of Negroes and direct 
lem to institutions managed by members of their own race. 

8 See Maurice S. Evans, Black and White in the Southern States, pp. 
44-45. What the Negro resents is, frequently, not so much the fact 
f segregation as the humiliating way in which the policy is enforced 
ad the abusive tone of many of its advocates. 

1 "There is not the slightest doubt but that separate school systems, 
y giving colored children their own teachers and a sense of racial 
ride, are enabled to keep more colored children in school and take them 
irough longer courses than mixed systems. The 100,000 Negroes of 

altimore have 600 pupils in the separate high school; New York, with 



386 The Mulatto in the United States 

seek and prefer the society of their own class and color. 
The fact that they are unwelcome in the hotels and restau- 
rants, in the theaters and other places of amusement and 
entertainment open to the whites, never comes within the 
experience of any but the very exceptional Negro. The ex- 
clusion policy of the whites is in line with the natural tend- 
ency of the blacks ; it affects and offends the small class 
of educated and cultured individuals who have more in com- 
mon, intellectually and otherwise, with the cultured whites, 
than they have with the mass of the Negro people. 8 

On the part of the leaders among the Negroes, there is 
an increasing amount of voluntary segregation in more 
places and in more lines. Separate schools are advocated 
and petitioned for: they open positions for the teachers. 
Professional and business men see it more and more to then 
advantage to promote a spirit of race solidarity. 9 Tc 
the extent to which this exists, they cease to be in compe 
tition with the business and professional men of the othei 
race. 10 In increasing numbers they are going South, iden- 
tifying themselves with the race, and finding their life anc 
work among the black group. The opportunities for th< 
educated and ambitious Negro or mulatto is greatest amon^ 
the people of his own race. 11 Competition there is not s< 
keen and the slightly superior individual can become ai 
important and influential person. The matter of self-inter 

a larger colored population, has less than 200 in its mixed high schools. 
Editorial, Crisis, 2-1912, p. 184-85. 

8 See E. W. Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race, pf 
168-69. 

9 Editorial, "Segregation — Let Her Come," The Conservative Coun 
selor, Waco, Texas, 9-2-1915. 

10 See Editorial, "Paying for a Name," Chicago, Illinois, Idea, 9-9-191J 
n Booker T. Washington, "Why Should Negro Business Men G 

South?" Chanties, Vol. 15, pp. 17-19. 



Summary: Present Tendencies 387 

est ranges them on the side of the segregation policy where 
the rank and file always have been as a matter of choice. 
The acquisition of these men increases the feeling of im- 
portance on the part of the group and so increases its tend- 
ency toward unity. With the increase of racial unity, 
the opportunities for educated men in the race increase in 
number and importance, and this, in turn, attracts with in- 
creasing force the mulatto and other superior men of the 
race. 

The self-respect as well as the self-interest of the educated 
Negro tends to the same end as the proscription of the 
white and the temperament of the blacks. Speaking gener- 
ally, no Negro, regardless of color or training, is welcome 
in any social organization of cultured white people any- 
where in America. In the semi-social and professional or- 
ganizations, the same thing is in general true. 12 If the 
Negro is not barred from the medical, bar, teaching, and 
other professional associations, he never is made to feel 
that he is welcome. As a consequence, the Negro, to the 
extent of his culture and education, stays away when he 
finds that he is not wanted. It is the only action he can 
take and preserve his self-respect. 13 

By going South, the educated Negro is allowed to forget 
that he is denied privileges granted to others, that the race 
is looked upon as inferior and treated as alien. These are 
things which concern the individual very little. Aside from 
the professional agitator, they distress the Negro not at 

"The action of the American Bar Association in regard to certain 
near-white Negroes who had been accepted into membership without the 
fact of their race being known to the Association is a case in point. 
See "The American Bar Association and the Negro," Outlook, Vol. 102, 
pp. 1-2; "Lawyers and the Color Line," Literary Digest, Vol. 45, p. 
361 ; "The Color Line at the Bar," The Nation, Vol. 94, pp. 509-10. 

18 Editorial, The Voice of the People, Birmingham, Ala., 3-13-1915. 



388 The Mulatto in the United States 

all. In the North, however, they are the constant refrain 
from which the only escape is an escape from the race. 
In the South, the educated Negro can escape this ever- 
lasting agitation about his status and his rights. There his 
social status is fixed and once he realizes and accepts this 
fact, it ceases to trouble him. He has his own group and 
he is definitely excluded from white society. The treat- 
ment in the matter is at least consistent and the mulatto, 
recognizing the impossibility of achieving a position of so- 
cial equality, ceases to be concerned about it and loses his 
bitterness at being excluded. He is able to stop "thinking 
black." The morbid brooding over real and fancied wrongs 
gives place to a healthy thought about actual problems. 
The attitude of slavish dependence — the childish wail for 
others to right his wrongs — is replaced by an attitude of 
manly independence, a determination to face the world and 
to play a manly part therein. Agitation gives place to 
work ; self-reliance replaces self-pity. He no longer lives 
"behind the veil"; he is dealing with objective reality. He 
becomes a useful man and, in proportion to his ability, a 
leader among his people. 

Another thing making for the increase in this spirit of 
nationality is the growing literature of the race. This is a 
focal point about which the sentiments of the race can 
crystallize. As it increases in volume and in quality and 
comes to be more widely read, the sentiment of pride cor- 
respondingly increases. There is also some effort being 
made by the Negroes themselves to create a Negro history. 14 
A tradition of musical genius already exists among the race 
and, outside musical circles, is generally accepted by the 
whites. The gift which so many Negroes have for effective 
public speaking is another tiling of which the race is ex- 

14 See p. 216 above. 



Summary. Present Tendencies 389 

ceedingly proud. The point here is that regardless of the 
slender basis of fact upon which many of these things rest, 
they have an immense effect upon the thinking of the race. 
It is the opinion that a race has of itself that counts in 
the growth of a nationalistic spirit, 15 and the opinion of the 
best thinkers of the race is coming more and more to be 
that if the Negroes desire really to reach a full manhood 
they must reach it by being Negroes rather than by being 
weak imitations of white people. 

Whether it be because of compulsion on the part of the 
whites or because of voluntary action on the part of the 
Negroes, there is an increasing segregation on the part of 
the Negroes and consequently an increasing tendency toward 
racial solidarity. 

In this growing nationality, the mulattoes who have gone 
over to the race and cast their fortunes with it are the aris- 
tocracy. Broadly speaking, they are the only members of 
the race who are educated. Consequently, they now form 
the professional classes. For the most part, they are the 
property-owning members of the race 16 and most of the 
Negroes who have made any conspicuous success in a busi- 
ness or industrial way are members of the mulatto division. 
They are, then, the important men in the commercial and 
business affairs of the race. Their color or rather absence 
of color helps to qualify them for a social position among the 
elite. They have a confidence, born of their pride in their 
color and their more or less successfully concealed contempt 

15 The belief of the modern Greek, for example, and his boundless 
pride in the belief, that he is descended from the ancient historical race 
is not of any less social significance because of the mythological nature 
of the belief. Similarly, the Irish National movement is chiefly cen- 
tered in religion, reinforced by myths of ancient greatness. 

10 See Booker T. Washington, "Negro Homes," Century, Vol. 76, pp. 
71-79. 



390 The Mulatto in the United States 

for a black skin, that the black man seldom attains. They 
have, and tend to maintain, an exclusive social status that 
is the despair and the envy of the black man. 17 Their 
superior economic position, their superior training, their 
light color and the tradition of superiority, all combine to 
make them the important and superior individuals in any 
racial group. 

Certain consequences of this movement are fairly obvious. 
According as one judges these to be desirable or undesirable, 
one will be disposed to approve or oppose the nationalistic 
tendency. 

Racial solidarity means an increased isolation of the 
Negro group. The bi- racial adjustment tends to keep the 
races apart. The further the Negroes develop a sense of 
nationality, the further do they voluntarily separate them- 
selves from the white world. Direct individual competition 
between the members of the races tends to diminish. They 
receive less stimulation from the culture of the other race; 
they are isolated from that stimulation. 18 To the extent 
that this becomes true, the Negroes cease to measure their 
talents and accomplishments by the standards of the supe- 
rior race. They do not compete with the white man, The 
isolation narrows their interests and their conceptions, foi 
there is little with which to compare them and weigh their 
value. They do not need to measure up to the white man's 
standard ; they can live and succeed on a lower plane of 
efficiency. They are more or less out of the stream of 
social advancement and the strenuous competition of mod- 
ern life. This isolation means, of course, a slower advance 

17 See editorial, "Don't Blame All," The Bee, Washington, D. C, 1-30- 
1915. See, also, Boston Reliance, 3-13-1915. 

18 J. H. DeLoach, "The Negro as a Farmer," Atlanta Congress, 1913, 
p. 381. 



Summary. Present Tendencies 391 

on the part of the Negroes toward the standards and ac- 
complishments of European civilization ; but it also means 
a more normal development, a more gradual accommodation 
to ideas and standards that, by the great mass of the race, 
are at present neither appreciated nor understood. A 
gradual elevation of the race means less disorganization 
of the individual and of the group. The crises in the ad- 
vance are less radical and the chances for a normal ac- 
commodation are greater. In brief, it means a slower but 
a more normal advance toward the ideals and standards of 
I the white group. 

The isolation consequent upon the formation of a na- 
tionality tends, in many ways, to inferior educational oppor- 
tunity for the members of the race. To the extent that the 
schools are separated and the Negro schools in the hands 
of the race, the black children will get their schooling from 
mulatto teachers. These mulattoes are themselves but su- 
perficially and imperfectly trained men. The highest esti- 
mate would hardly place the number of college trained 
Negroes at five thousand. 19 They, for the most part, are 
the product of miserably inefficient Negro colleges. As 
long as these colleges exist with their present low stand- 
ards — and the nationalistic tendency is to put them more 
and more in the hands of the race — the graduates, so far 
as schooling is concerned, will be equal, perhaps, to the 
graduate of the ordinary white high school. The teachers 
of the race will, at best, be graduates of these inferior col- 
leges, and the masses of the race will be defectively trained 
just to the extent that they are isolated from the white 

10 C. H. McCord estimates the number of Negro college graduates 
from 1840 to 1909 as 3,853, and from 1910 to 1914 inclusive as 1,147, 
a total of 5,000 in all for the period of 75 years. The American Negro 
as a Dependent, Defective and Delinquent, p. 14. 



392 The Mulatto in the United States 

race. 20 Under the nationalistic system, therefore, the black 
man will not make very rapid strides in educational advance- 
ment. 

The growth of a nationality means the increasing compe- 
tition on racial lines and the decreasing competition of in- 
dividuals of the two races. Here, as elsewhere, competition 
is a selective process. The fact that individual differences 
are everywhere greater than race differences makes compe- 
tition act against stratification on the basis of race and 
tends to put the individual, regardless of race, into the place 
for which he is best fitted. The racial competition results 
in forcing the mass of the race into the occupation, or small 
group of occupations, in which they are best fitted to sur- 
vive, or for which no other group will compete. The dis- 
placement of the race from many vocations on which they 
once had a virtual monopoly has already gone very far. 
Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams, 21 writing in 1905 in regard 
to the Negroes of Chicago, says on this point : 22 

... In the matter of employment, the colored people 
of Chicago have lost in the last ten years nearly every 
occupation of which they once had almost a monopoly. 
There is now scarcely a Negro barber left in the busi- 
ness district. Nearly all the janitor work in the large 

20 "If such segregation led to the formation of Negro communities 
entirely apart from the life of the state and the current civilized life 
around them, with the prospect of personal and communal deterioration, 
I should be against it. But I can see no reason why it should be so. 
The best of the race would join the movement, the educated and trained 
would be available to keep the community life at a high standard, while 
the highest voluntary assistance and advice of the philanthropic whites 
would be willingly given. . . ." Evans, Black and White in the South- 
ern States, p. 259. 

21 See p. 223 above. 

""Social Bonds in the 'Black Belt' of Chicago," Charities, Vol. 15, 
p. 43. 



Summary: Present Tendencies 393 

buildings has been taken away from them by the Swedes. 
White men and women as waiters have supplanted col- 
ered men in nearly all the first-class hotels and restau- 
rants. Practically all the shoe polishing is now done 
by Greeks. Negro coachmen and expressmen and team- 
sters are seldom seen in the business districts. . . . 

In the decade following, the Negroes still further lost 
ground. Not only in Chicago but throughout the country, 
the Negroes have been forced out of every occupation in 
which they have come into competition with another race. 
Only as roustabouts and rough laborers in the cities, and 
as agricultural laborers in the South, have the Negroes been 
able to hold their own. 23 

The growth of racial solidarity probably means a les- 
sening of racial intermixture. The segregation and the 
voluntary isolation prevent, in large measure, the opportu- 
nity for it to take place. So long as the races are not iso- 
lated and remain on different cultural levels, intermixture 
will go on to the extent of the desire of the males of the 
superior race. Segregation does not lessen the tendency to 
intermix; it lessens the opportunity. On the other hand, 
the developing sense of race pride tends to .the same end. 24 
The Negro woman ceases to desire such relations when they 
come to mean disgrace instead of prestige. When the Ne- 
gro provides as well for his wife as the white man does for 
his black or yellow concubine, there is also less disposition 
on the part of the race women to form such unions. 25 The 



23 



E. C. Branson, "The Negro Working Out His Own Salvation," 
Atlanta Congress, 1913, p. 390. The exceptions to such generalizations 
are of course very numerous. In some cases the Negroes have been 
forced up instead of out. 

24 Thomas Nelson Page, The Negro, p. 291. 

26 See Editorial "Enemies Within Our Camp," The Chicago Defender, 
4-22-1916. 



394 The Mulatto in the United States 

vicious elements of the race, moreover, will be restrained 
by a sense of public disapproval and casual intermixture 
will decrease. 

The growth of a nationalistic spirit may very conceivably 
mean an increase of friction between the races. 26 The in- 
crease of race pride and personal self-respect, until it 
reaches a stage beyond mere bumptiousness and braggado- 
cio, has a tendency to bring the man into conflict with his 
social surroundings. The mulattoes going over to the Ne- 
groes and becoming their leaders contain a large per cent 
of disgruntled agitators. 27 So far, also, as the mulattoes 
are Northern men, they are unfamiliar with the Negro char- 
acter and with the conditions of life in the South. That they 
are not always wise leaders may well be supposed. Their 
mistakes may increase racial strife unless restrained by 
the common sense of the members of the two races. 28 Some 
opponents of the segregation policy even predict race wars 
and revolutions — analogous, apparently, to the situation 
in the Latin-American countries which has been brought 
about, partly at least, by the adoption of an opposite policy 
— as the final outcome of the segregation policy. 29 Except 
for the placid disposition and the native common sense of 
the black man, the anarchistic teachings of some of the mal- 
contents doubtless would result occasionally in rioting and 
the growth of a spirit of racial ill-will. 

26 S. D. McEnery, "Race Problem in the South," Independent, Vol. 
55, p. 426. 

27 "There is, indeed, rather a tendency to racial solidarity in opposi- 
tion to the whites on all questions whatsoever; . . . There is, more- 
over, a not rare belief among the whites that the preachers and leaders 
contribute to increase these tendencies and teach hostility rather than try 
to uplift the race morally." Page, The Negro, p. 304. See, also, p. 307. 

^McCord, The American Negro, p. 109. 
'Segregation," Crisis, 12-1913. 






29 «( 



Summary: Present Tendencies 395 

The mulattoes at present are the leading men of the race 
and the indication is that they will become more and more 
so as time goes on. They have an immense start of the 
blacks and, granting that they have an equal amount of 
native ability, there is no immediate prospect of their losing 
the lead they now have, but every reason to believe that the 
gap will tend to widen. It is certainly being widened at the 
present time. 

The mulattoes are the property-owning class among the 
race. Most of the business is conducted by them. They 
are the ones who own homes and other property. Whatever 
be the advance that the black man may make, the mulatto 
group with the aid of the accumulated capital is advancing 
in economic prosperity at even greater strides. 

The mulattoes are at present the educated and the pro- 
fessional classes among the race. Moreover, at present they 
make the greatest use of the schools of a secondary and col- 
lege character which provide education to members of the 
race. This means that, for a generation at least, the mu- 
lattoes will continue to be the intellectual group 'of the 
race. 

The ideal of the Negro is a light-colored man. So long 
as the overwhelming majority of the notables of the race 
are yellow or near-white rather than brown or black, the 
ideal of the race will continue to be light rather than dark. 
With the growth of racial solidarity, these individuals are 
more and more included within the race where their light 
color is a distinct asset to them. 30 The ideal of the race 
tends to perpetuate the mulatto as a superior type. 

The mulattoes are everywhere proud of their white re- 

80 This is true in spite of a species of "race pride" which seeks out 
)lack men for high positions and show purposes instead of seeking 
:orapetence. 



/ 



396 The Mulatto in the United States 

lationship and anxious to preserve it. Nearly every man 
of the group marries a woman lighter than himself. The 
number of prominent mulattoes with wives who are black, 
or even noticeably darker than themselves, are scarcely 
more numerous than those who have married white wives. 
The tendency, then, from generation to generation is for 
the intellectual part of the race to become lighter and 
lighter in color. 

A very small number of very light mulattoes each year 
desert the race and become incorporated into the white race. 
This number tends to increase as successive generations of 
admixture of white blood lighten the color, straighten the 
hair, and smooth the features of the race. At present, how- 
ever, the intermarriage of white women with mulattoes, as 
well as the illicit admixture of white blood, far more than 
counterbalances the losses to the group through such 
changes of racial status. 

Furthermore, the mulatto group continually is being im- 
proved by the addition to it of the best blood of the Negro 
race. 'The black man of ability, in almost every case, mar- 
ries into the mulatto caste; and his children, with whatever 
of their father's superior mentality they inherit, are mu- 
lattoes. So far as his superiority is inherited, it becomes 
an asset to the mulatto group. The black man of greatest 
ability, perhaps, of any black man in the race is married 
to a light-colored mulatto woman. The most widely known 
black man of the race has a wife who is near white. The 
black man who approached nearer to genius than any othei 
man the race has produced, married a light mulatto. The 
rule is almost without an exception that the black man oi 
consequence marries into the mulatto caste. The mulattc 
group thus, on the assumption of the transmission of su- 
perior mental capacity, tends to become not only a cultur 



Summary: Present Tendencies 397 

ally but a biologically superior group. 

The mulattoes are thus the vital point in the whole race 
problem. It is their ideas, their sentiments, and their atti- 
tudes, in so far as they identify themselves with the race, 
that tend to prevail. The fact needs to be recognized in 
any dealing with the race, or in any efforts for race better- 
ment. 

In any study and discussion of the race problem, scien- 
tific accuracy as well as a decent regard for simple truth 
requires that the writer indicate whether his discussion has 
to do with full-blooded Negroes or with the men of mixed 
blood. The failure to make this simple and elementary dis- 
tinction, more than any other one thing, has made the vast 
bulk of the literature relating to the Negro in America 
either worthless or vicious. 



- 



: 



■ 



INDEX TO NAMES OF MEN WHOSE ETHNIC 
ANCESTRY IS ANALYZED 



Abbott, A. R., 228, 238. 

Abbott, A. W., 247, 259. 

Abbott, Granville S., 217. 

Abner, David, 265. 

Adams, Mrs. Agnes, 234. 

Adams, Cyrus Field, 299. 

Adams, John, 217. 

Adams, J. W., 222. 

Adams, Lewis, 238. 

Adger, Robert, 229. 

Aldridge, Ira, 196, 198, 288. 

Alexander, John H., 228, 247. 

Alexander, J. N. W., 254. 

Alexander, M. S., 299. 

Alexander, N. H., 297. 

Alexander, William, 299. 

Alexander, W. G., 222, 259. 

Allen, B. F., 268. 

Allen, G. W., 277. 

Allen, Isaac B., 234. 

Allen, Macon B., 234. 

Allen, Richard, 191. 

Allen, William G., 238. 

Allensworth, Lt. Col. A., 247. 

Allston, J. H., 234. 

Allston, Philip J., 234, 298, 299. 

Alstor, J. W., 277. 

Ambush, James Enoch, 217. 

Amiger, W. T., 266. 

Amo, Anthony William, 189. 

Anderson, C. H., 296, 298. 

Anderson, Charles W., 203, 208, 

253, 299. 
Anderson, Duke William, 217. 
Anderson, John C, 232. 
Anderson, J. H., 225. 
Anderson, Louis B., 228. 
Anderson, Osborn Perry, 231. 
Anderson, Major W. T., 247. 
Andrews, W. T., 299. 
Annibal, 189. 
Annibal, Son of, 189. 



Antoine, C. C, 220, 252. 
Appo, William, 231. 
Archer, H. E., 228, 266. 
Archer, Mrs. Henrietta M., 228. 
Armisted, E. H., 234. 
Armstrong, William O., 234. 
Arnett, B. W., 232. 
Atkins, S. G., 225, 277. 
Attway, W. A., 296, 299. 
Attucks, Crispus, 197, 200. 
Attwell Ernest, 238. 
Attwell, Joseph S., 238. 
Attwood, L. K., 238. 
Augusta, A. T., 232, 247, 260. 
Augustin, Peter, 229. 
Avant, Henry, 299. 

Bacote, S. W., 278. 

Bagnall, Powhattan, 234. 

Bailey, Grandmother, 229. 

Bailey, J. B., 234. 

Bailey, L. C, 257. 

Baker, D. W., 297. 

Baker, Gertrude M., 234. 

Baker, Harry E., 225, 256. 

Baker, T. Nelson, 270. 

Baldwin, Maria L., 238. 

Ballard, W. H., 299. 

Banks, Charles, 208, 298, 299. 

Banks, Mrs. Charles, 299. 

Banks, J. B., 222. 

Banks, Walden, 234. 

Banneker, Benjamin, 189, 190, 196, 

198, 199, 257. 
Bannister, E. M., 220, 287. 
Baptiste, George de, 239. 
Barbadoes, James, 219. 
Barnet, Mrs. Ida Wells, 201. 
Barnett, Ferdinand L., 228. 
Barrier, Anthony, 229. 
Barrier, Miss Ella D., 222. 
Bass, Charles T., 299. 



399 



400 



Index to Names 



Basset, E. D., 217, 251. 
Beale, Mme. I. B., 299. 
Beaman, Amon C, 229. 
Beaman, Jehiel C, 234. 
Beams, Charlotte, 217. 
Beckett, W. W., 265. 
Becraft, Maria, 217. 
Bell, George, 232. 
Bell, J. B., 299. 
Bell, James M., 231. 
Bell, L. A., 297. 
Benjamin, Edgar P., 234. 
Benjamin, L. W., 257. 
Benjamin, Miss M. E., 257. 
Benson, John J., 238. 
Benson, William E., 238. 
Bentley, C. E., 203, 209. 
Bergen, Madam Flora B., 201. 
Berry, E. C, 238, 299. 
Bethune, Miss M. M., 266. 
Bethune, Thomas, 220. 
Bibb, J. D., 225. 
Bigham, J. A., 285. 
Binga, Jesse, 238, 299. 
Bird, Frank K., 277. 
Bishop, H. C, 203. 
Black, Henry, 222. 
Blackshear, E. L., 225, 268. 
Blackwell, G. L., 277. 
Blair, Henry, 258. 
Blodgett, J. H., 299. 
Blue, L., 257. 
Bluitt, B. R., 260. 
Blyden, Edward W., 199. 
Bogle, Robert, 229. 
Bonchet, Edward A., 270. 
Bond, James, 239. 
Bond, James A., 299. 
Bond, Theophilus, 299. 
Booker, Joseph A., 224, 265. 
Booze, Eugene P., 299. 
Boss, Hon. Harry, 200. 
Bowen, Mrs. Ariel, 225. 
Bowen, J. W. E., 203, 208, 299. 
Bowler, Jack, 239. 
Bowser, Mrs. Rosa D., 225. 
Boyd, B., 239. 
Boyd, Henry, 217. 
Boyd, H. A., 299. 
Boyd, Henry A., 295. 
Boyd, R. F., 260, 299. 
Boyd, R. H., 203, 208, 278 300. 
Bradford James, 232. 



Bragg, Fellow, 239. 
Braggs, Geo. F., Jr., 225. 
Braithwaite, William S., 200, 203 

208, 284. 
Brawley, B. G., 203. 
Brawley, E. M., 225. 
Bray, J. A., 276. 
Brooks, Charles H., 298, 300. 
Brooks, Paul C, 234. 
Brooks, W. H., 225. 
Brown, Aaron, 277. 
Brown, A. M., 239. 
Brown, D. H., 300. 
Brown, E. C, 296. 
Brown, E. E., 234. 
Brown, Henry, 257. 
Brown, Henry E., 239. 
Brown, Miss H. Q., 201, 203. 
Brown, John M., 217. 
Brown, Nellie, 220. 
Brown, Richard L., 220. 
Brown, Roscoe C, 260. 
Brown, S. N., 225. 
Brown, William Wells, 192, 20C 

239. 
Browne, Hugh M., 229. 
Bruce, B. K., 196, 199, 250. 
Bruce, Mrs. B. K., 203. 
Bruce, John E., 203. 
Bruce, Roscoe C, 203, 209, 252. 
Bryan, Andrew, 19. 
Bryant, Ira T., 203, 209, 277, 30C 
Bryant, W. W., 234. 
Buchanan, Noah, 252. 
Buchanan, W. S., 267. 
Buckner, George W., 253, 254. 
Bugg, J. H., 239. 
Bulkley, W. H., 203. 
Bulkley, William L., 270. 
Bundy, Richard W., 253. 
Burkins, Eugene, 220, 257. 
Burleigh, Harry T., 200, 203, 20* 
Burns, Anthony, 220, 229. 
Burr, Seymour, 234. 
Burrell, W. P., 239. 
Burroughs, George L., 239. 
Burroughs, Miss Nannie H., 20J 

266, 278, 300. 
Burroughs, W. M., 300. 
Burrows, William, 276. 
Burwell, L. L., 239, 260. 
Bush, Anita, 200. 
Bush, Chester E., 300. 



Index to Names 



401 



Bush, Mrs. Cora E., 300. 

Bush, John E., 209, 239, 254, 298, 

300. 
Bush, Mrs. Olivia Ward, 234. 
Bush, William H., 203. 
Butler, H. R., 225, 260. 

Cabaniss, J. A., 300. 

Cain, R. H., 217, 251. 

Caldwell, J. C, 277. 

Caldwell, J. S., 203, 277. 

Calhoun, A. R., 276. 

Calhoun, R. C, 300. 

Calloway, T. J., 300. 

Campbell, J. B., 239. 

Cannon, George E., 260. 

Capitien, James Eliza John, 189. 

Cardozo, F. L., 232. 

Cardozo, T. W., 252. 

Carey, Lott, 217. 

Carey, Mary A. S., 217. 

Carney, William H., 217. 

Carr, James L., 203. 

Carroll, Jacqueline, 234. 

Carroll, Richard, 239, 300. 

Carson, Simeon L., 260. 

Carter, Rev. E. R., 222. 

Carter, H. C, 252. 

Carter, James G., 253, 300. 

Carter, Lt. Louis A., 248. 

Carter, R. A., 210, 275. 

Carter, W. J., 203. 

Carver, G. W., 210, 269. 

Cato, 220. 

Chappelle, Julius B., 234. 

Chappelle, W. D., 225, 276. 

Charles, H. M., 300. 

Charlton, Melville, 220. 

i Chase, William Calvin, 224. 

iChavis, John, 191. 

iCheatham, H. P., 251. 
^Cherry, M. A., 257. 

(Chester, T. Morris, 232. 

Chestnutt, C. W., 194, 195, 198, 
203, 208, 284. 
hiles, Nick, 210. 
:«|Chosum, Melvin J., 296. 
Chretien, Paul, 239. 
Church, R. E. Jr., 209. 
Church, R. R., 300. 
31ark, Jonas, 234. 

Dlark, J. Milton, 234. 
lark, J. S., 268. 



Clark, Peter H., 229. 

Cleaves, N. C, 275. 

Clement, G. C, 277. 

Clinton, George W., 209, 277, 300. 

Coard, B. T., Jr., 296. 

Cobb, J. A., 253, 300. 

Coggins, J. N. C, 278. 

Cohen, Walter L., 300. 

Coker, Daniel, 232. 

Cole, Bob, 200, 234. 

Cole, Rebecca J., 260. 

Collier, N. W., 300. 

Conner, James M., 276. 

Cook, Elijah, 239. 

Cook, Eliza Ann, 217. 

Cook, George F. T., 199. 

Cook, George W., 203, 210. 

Cook, John F., Jr., 199. 

Cook, John F., Sr., 199. 

Cook, Will Marion, 203, 208. 

Coolidge, J. S., 257. 

Cooper, Mrs. Anna J., 228. 

Cooper, E. J., 228. 

Copeland, John Anthony, 231. 

Coppin, Fanny M. Jackson, 199. 

Coppin, L. J., 203, 209, 276. 

Coppin, Thomas, 229. 

Corbin, J. C, 232. 

Cornell, A. C, 222. 

Cornish, Alexander, 217. 

Corrothers, James D., 220. 

Cosey, A. A., 278. 

Coshburn, Walter M., 222. 

Coshburn, Mrs. W. M., 222. 

Costin, Louisa Parke, 217. 

Costin, Martha, 232. 

Costin, William, 217. 

Cottrell, Charles, 253. 

Cottrell, Elias, 239, 275, 300. 

Council, W. H., 222. 

Coursey, Robert F., 234. 

Courtney, S. E., 210, 260, 299, 300. 

Covington, John, 300. 

Cowan A. C, 300. 

Cox, J. M., 226, 266. 

Cox, W. Alexander, 235, 300. 

Cox, W. W., 300. 

Craft, Henry K., 239. 

Crafts, William, 229. 

Crafts, Mrs. William, 229. 

Crawford, Joshua, 235. 

Crogman, William Henry, 203, 209. 

Cromwell, J. W., 226. 



402 



Index to Names 



Crowdy, William, 235. 

Crowther, Samuel, 239. 

Crum, W. D., 239. 

Crum, W. E., 235. 

Crummel, Alexander, 196, 197, 199, 

285. 
Crummell, Boston, 239. 
Cuffe, John, 218. 
Cuffe, Paul, 196, 199. 
Cugoano, Ottobah, 189. 
Cummings, Harry S., 203. 
Curtis, Bishop, 239. 
Curtis, A. M., 203, 259, 260. 
Curtis, James L., 200, 203. 
Curtis, J. Webb, 228. 
Custalo, William, 222. 

Dabney, Austin, 239. 
Dailey, Sam, 239. 
Dailey, U. G., 260. 
Dalton, Thomas, 235. 
Daneey, J. C, 203, 209, 278. 
Dandridge, Ann, 218. 
Dangerfield, Newby, 231. 
Daniels, Jim, 231. 
Darden, J. H., 222. 
Darden, John W., 260. 
Davage, M. S., 278. 
Davidson, Shelby, 257. 
Davis, A. K., 220, 252. 
Davis, Mrs. Belle, 300. 
Davis, B. J., 209. 
Davis, B. O., 209, 248. 
Davis, Charles T., 300. 
Davis, D. W., 226. 
Davis, George W., 300. 
Davis, Henrietta Vinton, 201. 
Davis, I. D., 226. 
Davis, Mrs. L. A., 222. 
Davis, W. R., 257. 
Day, J. Howard, 229. 
Day, William Howard, 239. 
Dean, Jennie, 239. 
De Grasse, John V., 218, 260. 
Delancey, Martin R., 230. 
De Large, R. C, 220, 251. 
De Mortie, Louise, 218, 235. 
De Mortie, Mark, 235. 
Dennison, F. A., 203, 209. 
Derrick, W. B., 224. 
Dett, R. N., 203. 
Deveaux, John H., 239. 
Dickerson, William F., 218. 



Dickinson, J. H., 257. 
Dickson, Rev. Moses, 239. 
Diffay, J. O., 295. 
Diggs, J. R. L., 270. 
Dillon, Dr. Sadie, 239. 
Dogan, M. W., 210, 266. 
Dorsett, C. N., 239, 260. 
Dorsey, Thomas L., 230. 
Dossen, Vice-President, 240. 
Douglass, Charles R., 230, 240. 
Douglass, Frederick, 192, 196, 19' 

198, 199, 200, 210, 252, 288. 
Douglass, H. Ford, 230. 
Douglass, J. H., 203. 
Douglass, Lewis H., 230. 
Douglass, W., 257. 
Downing, George T., 230. 
Downing, Thomas, 230. 
Doyle, James, 258. 
Draper, Garrison, 232. 
Drew, Howard P., 200. 
Drury, Theodore, 235. 
Du Bois, W. E. B., 195, 197, 19) 

200, 203, 207, 270, 284. 
Dubuclet 240. 
Duckery, Henry, 235. 
Dudley, James B., 267. 
Dumas, Alexandre, 188, 197, 200. 
Dumas, A. W., 260. 
Dunbar, Chas. B., 260. 
Dunbar, Paul Laurence, 194, 19 

197, 198, 199, 200, 210, 224, 28 

285. 
Dunbar, Mrs. Paul Laurence, 22 
Dungee, A. C, 300. 
Dunlop, Alexander, 240. 
Dunn, Oscar J., 220, 252. 
Duprey, William, 235. 
Durham, James, 189, 191, 196, 26! 
Dyson, Walter, 285. 



Earnest Louis, 222. 
Easton, Hosea, 235. 
Easton, Joshua, 235. 
Edmonds, T. H., 257. 
Eggleston, E. F., 240. 
Elbert, S. G., 299, 300. 
Elbert, Mrs. S. G., 300. 
Ellerson, L. B., 226. 
Elliot, R. B., 196, 199, 251. 
Elliott, J. T., 299. 
Elliott, T. J., 300. 
Emanuel, J., 300. 






Index to Names 



40S 



Europe, James Resse, 200, 203. 
Evans, Henry, 191. 
Evans, Matilda A., 240. 
Evans, Mrs. S. J., 228. 
Evans, Wm. P., 300. 

Ferguson, John C, 260. 
Ferguson, Joseph, 260. 
Ferguson, S. D., 203, 278. 
Fields, W. R., 240. 
Fisher, D. A., 257. 
Fleet, John H., 218. 
Flipper, Henry O., 247. 
Flipper, J. S., 204, 276. 
Floyd, Silas X., 220. 
Ford, C. E., 300. 
Ford, J. E., 210. 
Forten, Miss Charlotte, 218. 
Forton, James, 192, 258. 
Fortune, T. Thomas, 195, 204, 208. 
Fountain, W. A., 265. 
France, Joseph J., 260. 
Frances, J. W., 296. 
Francis, J. R., 226, 228. 
Francis, William, 189. 
Franklin, G. W., 300. 
Franklin, Nicholas, 218. 
Frence, John B., 228. 
Frierson, A. U., 226. 
Fuller, S. C, 204, 208, 260. 
Fuller, Mrs. S. C, See Meta Vaux 

Warrick. 
Fuller, Thomas, 189, 190. 
Furniss, Henry W., 204, 254. 
Furniss, S. A., 300. 

Gabriel, 218. 
Gaones, John S., 240. 
Gamble, H. F., 260. 
Ganes, John F., 230. 
Gardner, Eliza, 235. 
Garland, C. N., 235, 260. 
Garner, James E., 301. 
Garner, J. H., 301. 
Garnett, H. H., 196, 197, 199. 
Garrett, Thomas, 220. 
Gaskins, Nelson, 235. 
Gates, George A., 301. 
Gell, Monday, 220. 
Geoffray, L'Islet, 189. 
Gibbs, Miss Hattie, 222. 
Qibbs, J. C, 219. 



Gibbs, Miffin Wistar, 192, 301. 

Gibson, G. W., 240. 

Gilbert, F. H., 298, 301. 

Gilbert, J. W., 226, 276. 

Gilbert, M. W., 226, 276. 

Gillian, C. W., 301. 

Girideau, W. L., 301. 

Gladden, Lt. W. W., 248. 

Gleaves, R. H., 220, 252. 

Gleed, Robert, 252. 

Gloucester, John, 191. 

Goddard, Julius B., 235. 

Goiens, John W., 269. 

Goler, W. H., 204, 265, 278. 

Gomez, General Maximo, 228, 248. 

Goodwin, G. A., 226. 

Gordon, Henry, 240. 

Gordon, James H., 301. 

Gordon, Nora A., 222. 

Gordon, Sarah, 240. 

Gordon, W. C, 299, 301. 

Graham, A. A., 301. 

Grant, Bishop A., 224, 301. 

Grant, George F., 235. 

Gray, F. A., 301. 

Gray, Miss Mary A., 301. 

Gray, William, 240. 

Green, Benjamin T., 240. 

Green, Charles Henry, 232. 

Green, E. E., 260. 

Green, John, 224. 

Green, Lt. J. E., 248. 

Green, John P., 218. 

Green, Shields, 231. 

Green, S. W., 210. 

Greener, R, T., 196, 197, 208, 220. 

Gregory, J. M., 204. 

Grigg, John A., 265. 

Griggs, E. M., 296. 

Griggs, Sutton E., 210, 278. 

Grimes, Leonard, 218. 

Grimke, Archibald H., 204, 208. 

Grimke, F. J., 194, 204, 208. 

Gross, F. W., 265. 

Gross, William E., 240. 

Groves, C. A., 301. 

Groves, J. G., 301. 

Groves, Marjory, 235. 

Hackley, Mrs. E. A., 220. 
Hale, W. J., 210, 267. 
Hall, Mrs. Anna M., 218. 
Hall, Charles H., 235. 



404 



Index to Names 



Hall, G. C, 204, 208, 240, 259, 260, 

299. 
Hall, Primus, 230. 
Hall, Prince, 240. 
Hall, R. M., 240. 
Hall, Walter P., 301. 
Hamilton, R. T., 260. 
Hamlett, J. A., 276. 
Hamlin, J. A., 301. 
Hamm, James R., 301. 
Hansberry, E., 223. 
Haralson, Jare, 240, 251. 
Hargrave, F. S., 260. 
Harlan, Robert, 232. 
Harllee, N. W., 226. 
Harper, Fenton, 240. 
Harper, Frances E., 201. 
Harper, Mrs. F. E. W., 192. 
Harper, William A., 287. 
Harris, Charles E., 235. 
Harris, C. R., 277. 
Harris, Mrs. Carol V., 301. 
Harris, Gilbert C, 235, 301. 
Harris, J. H., 301. 
Harris, T. N., 240. 
Harrison, Hazel, 220. 
Harrod, W. A., 279. 
Hart, Mrs., 228. 
Hart, W. H. H., 204. 
Hatcher, Henry A., 301. 
Hatter, Allen, 301. 
Havis, Ferdinand, 210. 
Hawkins, J. R., 204, 209, 277, 301. 
Hawkins, Mason A., 204. 
Hawkins, T. S., 240. 
Hawkins, W. Ashbie, 204. 
Hayden, Lewis, 192. 
Hayes, Alexander, 218. 
Haynes, George E., 209, 270. 
Haynes, Lemuel, 191, 196, 198. 
Hayes, Roland W., 204. 
Hayes, Thomas H., 299, 301. 
Hazel, William A., 235. 
Heard, W. H., 226, 276. 
Hemmings, Robert, 235. 
Hendley, Willie M., 269. 
Henry, Sam, 252. 
Henson, Josiah, 232. 
Henson, Mathews, 200, 240. 
Herndon, A. F., 210. 
Hershaw, L. M., 204. 
Hewin, J. T., 226. 
Hewitt, W. V., 301. 



Hewlett, E. M., 240. 
Hibbler, John A., 301. 
Higgins, W. H., 260. 
Higiemonde, 188. 
Hill, James, 252. 
Hill, J. S., 296. 
Hill, Mrs. L., 240. 
Hill, L. P., 240. 
Hills, J. Seth, 260. 
Hilton, John T., 235. 
Hilyer, A. F., 226, 257. 
Hoagland, George, 301. 
Hodges, M. Hamilton, 235. 
Hogan, Ernest, 200. 
Holloway, Richard, 240. 
Holloway, T. B., 296. 
Holloweil, William, 230. 
Holly, J. T\, 240. 
Holmes, William E., 223, 265. 
Hood, J. W., 204, 209, 277. 
Holsey, L. H., 204, 275. 
Holtzclaw, W. H., 301. 
Hope, John, 204, 208, 265. 
Hort, Mrs. Emma T., 223. 
Horton, George, 232. 
Hosier, Harry, 240. 
Houston, R. C, 298. 
Howard, A. C, 301. 
Howard, Alexander S., 301. 
Howard, E. C, 260. 
Howard, P. W., 301. 
Howell, G. M., 301. 
Howell, S. A., 297. 
Hubbard, A., 240. 
Hubert, Z. T., 265. 
Hudson, R. B., 278. 
Hull, D. J., 265. 
Hunt, A. H., 235. 
Hunt, H. A., 226. 
Hunt, William H., 224, 253. 
Hunter, John E., 260. 
Hunton, W. A., 204, 210. 
Hurst, John E., 204, 209, 276. 
Hurst, S. P., 301. 
Hyer, The Sisters, 220. 
Hyman, John, 240, 251. 

Isaacs, E. W. D., 204, 278. 
Ish, I. G., 224. 

Jackson, A. B., 260, 299. 
Jackson, A. D., 285. 
Jackson, A. S., 277, 



Index to N dines 



405 



Jackson, Deal, 240. 

Jackson, George H., 254. 

Jackson, Jennie, 240. 

Jackson, J. C, 299, 301. 

Jackson, J. S., 278. 

Jackson, Miss Lena T., 226. 

Jackson, Mary C, 228. 

Jackson, T. J., 296. 

Jackson, William L., 232. 

Jacobs, C. C, 278. 

Jacobs, H. P., 252. 

Jack, Uncle, 275. 

Jamison, M. F., 275. 

Janifer, J. T., 277. 

Jason, W. C, 268. 

Jasper, John, 240. 

Jefferson, E. B., 301. 

Jenifer, J. T., 204, 210. 

Jenkins, O. C, 240. 

Jenkins, S. J., 223. 

Jennings, Cordelia A., 240. 

Jennings, Mrs. Mary F., 240. 

Johnson, 296. 

Johnson, Mrs. A. E., 284. 

Johnson, A. N., 301. 

Johnson, Billy, 235. 

Johnson, C. F., 210, 301. 

Johnson, Elijah, 220. 

Johnson, Harvey, 204. 

Johnson, H. L., 204. 

Johnson, H. T., 210. 

Johnson, J. A., 204, 210, 276. 

Johnson, J. O., 226. 

Johnson, J. Rosamond, 200, 204, 

209. 
Johnson, John Thomas, 232. 
Johnson, James W., 201, 204, 208, 

226, 254. 
Johnson, L. E., 240. 
Johnson, Peter A., 260. 

Tohnson, Sol. C, 241. 

Tohnson, W. Bishop, 279. 

Tohnson, W. H., 301. 

Tohnson, W. I., 301. 

Tones, Mme. (Black Patti), 201. 

Tones, Absolom, 220. 

Tones, A. D., 260. 

Tones, E. M., 278. 

Tones, E. P., 301. 
Jones, Miss Hazel K., 302. 
Jones, Henry, 229. 
Jones, John, 230. 
Jones, J. G., 241. 



Jones, J. H., 226. 

Jones, Joshua M., 276. 

Jones, John W., 261. 

Jones, Miles B., 260. 

Jones, R, E., 204, 208, 278, 299, 302. 

Jones, Scipio A., 210, 299, 302. 

Jones, Sissieretta, 201. 

Jones, T. W., 226, 302. 

Jones, Wiley, 241. 

Jordan, D. J., 226. 

Jordan, L. G., 204, 209, 279, 302. 

Josenberger, Mrs. Mary, 302. 

Juan, 229. 

Just, E. E., 204, 209. 

Kealing, H. T\, 195, 204, 209, 266. 

Keatts, Chester W., 224. 

Keatts, C. W., 302. 

Kelly, James, 223. 

Kennedy, W. A., 302. 

Kenney, J. A., 241, 261. 

Kerr, S., 226. 

Kersey, Willis A., 302. 

Keys, H. W., 302. 

King, G. H., 223. 

Kina:, Horace, 223. 

King, H. H., 302. 

King, J. T., 223. 

King, M. N., 223. 

King, W. E., 209. 

King, W. W., 223. 

Knight, D. L., 302. 

Knox, George L., 226. 

Kyles, L. W., 278. 

Lafon, Thorny, 220. 

Lambert family, 241. 

Lambert, William, 219. 

Lane, Isaac, 241, 275. 

Lane, J. F., 265. 

Lane, Lunsford, 192, 193. 

Lane, W. C, 235. 

Laney, Lucy, 204. 

Lankford, J. A., 302. 

Langford, Sam, 207. 

Langston, John M., 196, 197, 199, 

251. 
Lattimore, Andrew E., 235. 
Latimer, George, 235. 
Lavalette, W. A., 257. 
Lawrence, W. P., 279. 
Lawson, R. Augustus, 204. 
Leary, John, S., 232. 



406 



Index to Names 



Leary, Lewis S., 231. 

Leary, Matthew, 241. 

Leary, Matthew, Jr., 241. 

Lee, Bertina, 220, 287. 

Lee, B. F., 204, 208, 276. 

Lee, Joseph, 235, 254. 

Lee M. D., 278. 

Lehman, M. J., 223. 

Leile, George, 191. 

Levy, J. R., 261, 302. 

Lewis, A. L., 302. 

Lewis, Edmonia, 201, 287. 

Lewis, James, 204. 

Lewis, J. H., 235, 302. 

Lewis, John W., 296. 

Lewis, M. N., 302. 

Lewis, W. H., 201, 204, 207, 254. 

Lewis, W. I., 226. 

Lights, F. L., 297. 

Lindsay, Samuel, 297. 

Livingston, Lemuel W., 254. 

Logan, Warren, 205, 210, 302. 

Logan, Mrs. Warren, 226. 

Loguen, Bishop, 218. 

Long, Jefferson, 241, 251. 

Loudin, F. J., 257. 

Lovett, William C, 236. 

Lovinggood, R. S., 266. 

Lowe, J. I., 277. 

Lowry, Samuel, 232. 

Lowther, George W., 236. 

Lucas, Sam, 201. 

Lucas, W. W., 223, 278. 

Lugrade, S. L., 241. 

Lundy, Benjamin, 230. 

Lynch, James, 252. 

Lynch, John R., 205, 208, 248, 251. 

Lynk, M. V., 266. 

Lytic, Miss Lutie A., 228. 

McCarthy, Anthony, 302. 
McCarty, Owen, 241. 
McCary, William, 252. 
Maceo, 248. 

McClennon, A. C, 261. 
McClellan, G. M., 226. 
McCord, Sam, 241. 
McCoy, Benjamin M., 218. 
McCoy, E., 205, 257. 
McCoy, Elijah T., 198. 
McCrorey, H. L., 265. 
McCulloch, J. B., 302. 
McDaniel, E. E., 302. 



McDonald, J. Frank, 277. 
McDonald, W. H., 296. 
McDonough, David K., 261. 
McDuffv, J. D., 302. 
McGilbray, D. C, 302. 
McKane, Cornelius, 236. 
McKee, John, 220. 
McKinlev, J. Frank, 228. 
McKinley, Whitfield, 254. 
McKissack, E. H., 241, 302. 
McKissack, Moses, 302. 
Majors, W. L., 302. 
Margetson, G. Reginald, 236. 
Marshall, John R., 205. 
Marshall, Napoleon B., 236. 
Martin, J. A., 268. 
Martin, J. C, 276. 
Martin, John Sella, 236. 
Martin, Martha and sister, 232. 
Martin, William M., 228. 
Mason, Cassius, 205. 
Mason, Mrs. Lena, 226. 
Mason, M. C. B., 226, 302. 
Mason, U. G., 241. 
Mathews, William E., 230. 
Matthews, James C, 205. 
Matthews, Victoria E., 241. 
Matthews, W. Clarence, 236. 
Matzeliger, J. E., 220, 257. 
Maxwell, Leigh R., 223. 
Merrick, John, 241. 
Middlcton, Charles H., 218. 
Miles, Alexander, 228. 
Miles, Marv E., 232. 
Miller, Kelly, 194, 195, 201, 205 

207, 285, 302. 
Miller, T. H., 241, 251. 
Minton, F. J., 302. 
Minton, Henry, 229. 
Mitchell, Charlie L., 218. 
Mitchell, John, 205. 
Mitchell, John, Jr., 208. 
Mitchell, Mrs. Nellie B., 236. 
Mitchell, Robert, 279. 
Mitchell, S. T., 232. 
Mitchell, W. L., 297. 
Mollison, W. E., 205. 
Montgomery, Ben, 241. 
Montgomery, I. T., 205, 208, 252 j 

302. 
Montgomery, Thornton, 241. 
Moody, O. L., 266. 
Moore, A. M., 261. 



Index to Names 



407 



Moore, Alice Ruth, 220. 

Moore, Fred R., 209, 254. 

Moore, G. W., 205, 278. 

Moore, J. H., 276. 

Moore, Lewis B., 205, 270. 

Moore, T. Clay, 302. 

Moorland, J. E., 205, 208. 

Moreland, John F., 278. 

Morgan, B. J., 302. 

Morgan, Clement G., 236. 

Morgan, J. H., 226. 

Morris, Albert, 241. 

Morris, E. C, 205, 208, 279, 302. 

Morris, E. H., 194, 205, 208. 

Morris, Freeman, 241. 

Morris, J., 232. 

Morris, Robert, 232. 

Morris, W. R., 205. 

Mosby, John M., 296. 

Mossell, N. F., 205, 209, 261. 

Moten, Lucy, 205. 

Moton, R. R., 201, 205, 207, 269, 

302. 
Mott, Lucretia, 229. 
Moultry, Francis J., 241. 
Murphy, W. O., 302. 
Murray, Daniel, 205. 
Murray, G. W., 226, 251, 257. 
Murray, J. L., 223. 
Muse, Lindsay, 218. 
Myers, Cyrus, 223. 
Myers, George A., 241. 
Myers, Stephen J., 230. 

I Nance, L., 257. 
Napier, J. C, 205, 208, 254, 299, 

302. 
Napier, Mrs. J. C, 302. 
Nash, Charles E., 241, 251. 
Neighbors, W. D., 295, 302. 
Nell, William, 232, 236. 
N elson. Davfo 302. 

elson, Ida Gray, 228. 
Nesbitt, F. M., 303. 
Newby, Dangerfield, 231. 
Newton, Osborn A., 236. 
Nickens, Owen T. B., 241. 
Norman, M. W. D., 223. 
Nunn, Charles, 303. 

O'Connell, Pezavia, 270. 
O'Connor, 257. 
Ogden, Peter, 241. 



O'Harra, J. E., 231, 251. 

O'Kelly, Berry, 303. 

O'Kelley, C. G., 265. 

Olandad, 189. 

Olney, D. W., 226. 

Oncles, Father, 205. 

Osborn, Perry Anderson, 231. 

Ossie, Keebe, 241. 

Othello, 189. 

Otis, Joseph E., 241. 

Outlaw, John S., 261. 

Owens, Mrs. R. C, 303. 

Pace, Dinah, 241. 
Page, Inman E., 268, 303. 
Palmer, John H., 269. 
Palmer, Loring B., 261. 
Pamphlet, Gowan, 232. 
Parker, James B., 224. 
Parker, Inez C, 284. 
Parks, H. B., 205, 276. 
Parks, Thomas F., 303. 
Parks, W. G., 279. 
Parrish, C. H., 303. 
Partee, W. E., 226. 
Patrick, Thomas W., 236. 
Patterson, Fred D., 303. 
Patterson, Spenser, 303. 
Paul, Thomas, 236. 
Payne, Christopher H., 254. 
Payne, D. A., 196, 199. 
Payne, G. A., 265. 
Payton, F. A., Jr., 303. 
Pelham, R., 258. 
Penn, I. G., 205, 209, 241, 278. 
Penn, W. F., 261. 
Pennington, J. W. C, 196. 
Perdue, A. C, 303. 
Perry, Christopher, 210. 
Perry, C. W., 241. 
Peters, "Dr.", 236. 
Peters, E. S., 303. 
Peters, John, 220. 
Peters, Phyllis Wheatley, 189, 190, 
196, 198, 199, 201, 202, 210, 284. 
Peterson, B. H., 226. 
Peterson, James T., 303. 
Peterson, John, 241. 
Pettey, Mrs., 226. 
Pettiford, W. R., 303. 
Phelps, Mrs. Mary Rice, 223. 
Phillips, C. H., 205, 275. , 
Phillips, Henry L., 205. 



408 



Index to Names 



Pickens, William, 208. 
Pierce, Charles, 218. 
Pinchback, Napoleon, 241. 
Pinchback, P. B. S., 205, 209, 252, 

253. 
Pinheiro, Don T., 236. 
Pitts, Coffin, 236. 
Piatt, Miss Ida, 223. 
Pledger, William A., 224. 
Plummer, "Elder," 236. 
Poindexter, James, 218. 
Pollard, L. M., 241. 
Pompey, R. S., 269. 
Ponton, M. M., 265. 
Pope, James W., 236. 
Porter, J. R., 226. 
Porter, L. M., 303. 
Porter, Maggie, 241. 
Porter, Troy, 303. 
Porter, W. M., 303. 
Powell, B. F., 223. 
Powell, Clayton, 201. 
Powell, Holland, 279. 
Pratt, Harry T., 303. 
Price, J. C„ 199, 241, 288. 
Prillerman, Byrd, 268. 
Prioleau, G. W., 248. 
Procter, H. H., 209. 
Prosser, 229. 
Prout, John, 232. 
Purcell, I. L., 226. 
Purvis, C. B., 241, 261. 
Purvis, Robert, 192, 196. 
Purvis W. B., 220, 257. 
Pushkin, Alexander, 188. 

Quinn, William Paul, 218. 

Rainey, J. H., 220, 251. 

Rakestraw, W. M., 269. 

Rankin, J. W., 277. 

Ransier A. J., 220, 251, 252. 

Ransom, R. C, 205, 209, 277. 

Raphard, Father, 280. 

Rapier, James T., 220, 251, 261. 

Rav, Charles M., 230. 

Ray, Charlotte. 241. 

Ray, E. P., 257. 

Ray, Peter Williams, 261. 

Raymond, John T., 236. 

Raymond, Theodore H., 236. 

Reason, Charles L., 232. 



Redmond, Sarah, 232. 

Redmond, S. C, 241. 

Redmond, S. D., 303. 

Redwine, W. A., 296. 

Reed, L. S., 242. 

Reed, William L., 236. 

Reeve, J. B., 205. 

Reid, Dow, 242. 

Reid, Frank, 242. 

Remond, C. L., 192, 196. 

Revels, Hiram R., 220, 250, 253. 

Reynolds, H. H., 257. 

Rich, William, 230. 

Richards, Fannie, 233. 

Richardson, A. St. George, 226. 

Richey, C. V., 258. 

Riddick, J. F., 297. 
Ridley, Mrs. U. A., 242. 
Rischer, H. K., 242. 
Roberts, E. P., 209, 261. 
Roberts, D. R., 233. 
Roberts, Isaac L., 236. 
Roberts, Thomas Wright, 218. 
Roberson, W. E., 303. 
Robinson, David R., 236. 
Robinson, E. A., 298. 
Robinson, G. T., 226. 
Robinson, J. P., 224. 
Robinson, Mrs. Leila, 303. 
Robinson, Mrs. M. A., 223. 
Robinson, R. G., 227. 
Rock, David, 236. 
Rock, John S., 242. 
Rollins, Wade C, 303. 
Roman, C. V., 209, 261. 
Rosell, David, 261. 
Ross, A. W., 230, 242. 
Ross, John, 85. 
Ross, J. O., 296, 303. 
Rosser, L. E., 276. 
Roundtree, P. C, 303. 
Rucker, H. A., 205, 303. 
Ruffin, G. L., 230. 
Ruffin, Mrs. J. St. P., 205. 
Ruffin, Stanley, 236. 
Ruggles, David, 242. 
Russell, G. P., 268. 
Russell, James S., 242. 
Russwurm, J. B., 192, 196. 
Rutling, Thomas, 242. 

Saffell, Mrs. Daisy, 303. 
St. Benedict, The Moor, 242. 



Index to Names 



409 



St. Pierre, John, 242. 
Salem, Peter, 242. 
Sampson, Benjamin, 242. 
Sampson, B. K., 233. 
Sampson, George M., 242. 
Sampson, James D., 242, 
Sancho, Ignatius, 189. 
Sanders, D. J., 223. 
Sanderson, Thomas, 242. 
Sanford, J. M., 297. 
Sanford, J. S., 304. 
Sanifer, J. M., 242. 
Saunders, M. P., 303. 
Sawner, G. W. F., 303. 
Sawner, Mrs. Lena, 303. 
Sawyer, E. J., 303. 
Scarborough, W. S., 198, 205, 208, 

266. 
Scarlett, John E., 236. 
Scott, Emmett J., 205, 207, 

298. 
Scott, I. B., 205, 210, 278. 
Scott, J. J., 296. 
Scott, Lt. O. J. W., 248. 
i Scott, Walter, 242. 
Scott, W. A., 303. 
I Scott, Wilkerson and Scott, 303. 
Scott, William E., 205. 
iScottron, S. R., 303. 
Scruggs, B. E., 223. 
Searcy, T. J., 303. 
Sejour, Victor, 242. 
Selika, Madam, 202. 
Seme, Pixley Isaka, 242. 
Shadd, Mary Ann, 233. 
Shadwell, G. W., 303. 
Shaffer, C. T., 205, 276. 
Shaw, M. A. N., 236. 
Shaw, Mrs. Mary E., 242. 
Shepard, C. H., 261. 
Shepherd, H. C, 303. 
Sheppard, Mr., 242. 
Sheppard, Ella, 242. 
Sheppard, W. H., 242. 
Shirley, Thomas, 229. 
Shorter, James, 218. 
Shorter, Mrs. J. A., 242. 
Sidney, Thomas, 233. 
Simms, S. William, 236. 
Sims, W. H., 303. 
Sinclair, 285. 

Sinclair, William A., 220. 
Singleton, David, 253. 



Singleton, Huston, 223. 

Slater, T. H., 261. 

Smalls, Robert, 205, 251, 255. 

Smiley, Charles H., 242. 

Smith, Albretta Moore, 223. 

Smith, Alfred, 242, 303. 

Smith, Mrs. Amanda, 202. 

Smith, B. S., 205. 

Smith, Blanche, V., 236. 

Smith, C. S., 205, 209, 276. 

Smith, Eleanor A., 236. 

Smith, Harriet, 237. 

Smith, H. C, 205. 

Smith, Mrs. Hannah G., 236. 

Smith, Isaac H., 296, 304. 

Smith, Joshua B., 237. 

Smith, James McCune, 196, 242, 

261. 
Smith, Mary E., 237. 
Smith, Mrs. M. E. C, 227. 
Smith, R. L., 209, 304. 
Smith, R. S., 227. 
Smith, Stephen, 229. 
Smith, Wilford H., 195, 304. 
Smythe, John H., 227, 242. 
Snow, Benjamin, 218. 
Snowden, John Baptist, 233. 
Spaulding, C. C, 304. 
Sprague, Mrs. Rosetta D., 227. 
Stafford, A. O., 220. 
Stanley, Alexander, 242. 
Stanley, Charles, 242. 
Stanley, John, 242. 
Stanley, John C, 242. 
Stanley, J. P., 297. 
Stanton, J. C, 276. 
Starks, J. R., 276. 
Steele, Carrie, 242. 
Stephenson, J. B., 304. 
Sterrs, Alexander, 242. 
Sterrs, Willis E., 261. 
Stevenson, William, 237. 
Steward, T. G., 206, 209, 248. 
Stewart, Austin, 218. 
Stewart, F. A., 242, 261. 
Stewart, G. W., 275. 
Stewart, Logan H., 299. 
Stewart, T. McCants, 233. 
Still, Charity, 223. 
Still, James, 237. 
Still, Peter, 242. 
Still, William, 192. 
Stokes, A. J., 279. 



410 



Index to Names 



Storum, James, 227. 
Stout, R. S., 276. 
Straker, D. A., 223. 
Strauther, J. M., 304. 
Street, H. Gordon, 237. 
Stringer, T. W., 253. 
Strong, J. W., 265. 
Stubbs, Julian, 237. 
Suggs, D. C, 243. 
Sutton, E. H., 257. 

Talbert, Mary B., 227. 

Taliaferro, C. T., 304. 

Talley, T. W., 227. 

Tandy, H. A., 304. 

Taniel, R. F., 297. 

Tanner, B. T., 198, 206, 210, 276. 

Tanner, Henry O., 194, 197, 198, 

199, 200, 201, 206, 208, 210, 
i 287. 

Tate, W. A., 269. 
Taylor, Hilliard, 304. 
Taylor Major, 201. 
Taylor, Marshall W., 218. 
Taylor, Preston, 304. 
Taylor, R. R., 243. 
Taylor, S. Coleridge, 197, 201. 
Taylor, W. L., 194. 
Teamoh, Robert T., 237. 
Terrell, Father of R. H., 233. 
Terrell, Mrs. Mary Church, 202, 

206. 
Terrell, Mother of Mary C, 233. 
Terrell, R. H., 206, 208, 253, 

258. 
Terrs, Holmes, 304. 
Terry, Watt, 304. 
Thomas, Alex S. 218. 
Thomas, I. L., 278. 
Thomas, James C, 243, 304. 
Thomas, J. W., 304. 
Thomas, Lillian J. B., 223. 
Thompson, R. W., 227. 
Thurman, Mrs. Lucy, 243. 
Tibbs, Roy W., 220. 
Tidrington, E. G., 304. 
Tolton, Father Augustus, 280. 
Toussaint, Francois Dominique, 

189, 197, 248. 
Townsend, A. M., 261, 266. 
Townsend, J. M., 297. 
Trotter, William H., 208. 
Trotter, W. Monroe, 206, 237. 



Troumontaine, Julian, 233. 
Trower, John S., 243, 304. 
Truth, Sojourner, 192, 196, 197, 

199, 202. 
Tubman, Harriet, 192. 
Tucker, 261. 
Tucker, A. L., 297. 
Tucker, E. D., 304. 
(Tucker, T. de S., 227. 
Tulane, Victor H., 243. 
Tunnell, W. V., 206. 
Turnbo, Mrs. Pope, 304. 
Turner, Benjamin S., 243, 251. 
Turner, C. H., 206, 210, 270. 
Turner, H. M., 218, 247, 276. 
Turner, M. W., 304. 
Turner, Nat, 218. 
Twe, Dihdwo, 237. 
Tyler, Ralph W., 210, 255. 
Tyree, Evans, 206, 210, 276. 

Vachon, George B., 233. 

Valladelid, Juaji de, 239. 

Vass, G. W., 206. 

Vass, S. N., 278. 

Vassa, Gustavus, 189. 

Velar, N. T., 304. 

Venegar, F. T., 268. 

Vernon, W. T., 206, 209, 265. 

304. 
Vesey, Denmark, 218, 243. 
Villa, Panco, 248. 

Walder, Walter F., 237. 

Waldron, J. Milton, 210. 

Walker, 237. 

Walker, Aida O., 201, 202, 288. 

Walker, Mme. C. J., 201, 304. 

Walker, David, 192, 196. 

Walker, Edwin G., 237. 

Walker, George, 201. 

Walker, H. L., 227. 

Walker, John W., 261. 

Walker, Maggie B., 206. 

Wall, Josiah T., 243, 251. 

Wall, O. S. B., 243. 

Wallace, A. G., 304. 

Wallace, J. E., 265. 

Wallace, T. W., 278. 

Wallace, W. N., 227. 

Waller, O. M., 227. 

Walters, Alexander, 206, 208, 277. 






Index to Names 



411 



alton, L. P., 261. 

Ward, E. E., 304. 

Ward, S. R., 218, 243. 

Ward, T. M. D., 218. 

Garfield, W. A., 206, 210, 261. 

Waring, J. H. N., 243. 

Warner, A. J., 277. 

Warrick, Meta Vaux, 220, 287. 

Washington, Booker T., 194, 195, 
196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 210, 

I 288, 298, 304. 

Washington, Mrs. Booker T., 202. 
j Washington, J. W., 304. 

Washington, Mrs. Margaret, 223. 

Washington, Mrs. S. I. N., 237. 

Watson, B. F., 277. 

Wavman, A. W., 218. 

Webb, John L., 304. 

Wells, John W., 304. 

Wells, Nelson, 218. 

IVelmon, Matthew, 304. 
.West, F. L., 269. 

West, W. B., 223. 
|Westberry, R. W., 304. 
iWestons, 243. 

fVharton, Heber E., 243. 

Wheatland, Marcus F., 206. 

Wheaton, J. F., 228. 
(Whipper, William, 192. 
(Whitaker, J. W., 227. 

[White, Clarence C, 206. 

.White, Fred, 206. 

SJWhite, G. H., 206, 210, 251. 

[White, T. P., 233. 
White, W. J., 233. 
Whiting, J. L., 269. 
jjWier, Felix, 220. 
Wilder, J. R., 227. 

Wilkinson, G. C, 285. 
Wilkinson, R. S., 268. 

Williams, Bert, 196, 201, 206, 209, 

288. 
'Williams, C. P., 304. 
Williams, C. T., 209. 

Williams, Charles W. M., 237. 

[Williams, Daniel H., 194, 198, 206, 

207, 259, 261. 
Williams, Mrs. D. H., 223. 

Williams, E. C, 206. 

Williams, Miss Emma Rose, 223. 

Williams, Mrs. Fannie Barrier, 
223. 

Williams, G. G., 304. 



Williams, George H., 198. 

Williams, G. H. C, 268. 

Williams, George Washington, 243. 

Williams, J. A., 304. 

Williams, J. B. L., 227. 

Williams, J. M. P., 253. 

Williams, J. S., 304. 

Williams, P. B., 257. 

Williams, R. S., 275. 

Williams, Mrs. Sylvanie F., 223. 

Williams, S. Laing, 304. 

Williams, W. T. B., 206, 210. 

Willis, E. D., 304. 

Willis, Joseph, 275. 

Wilson, Butler R., 237. 

Wilson, Edward, 228. 

Wilson, James H., 261. 

Wilson, J. M., 253. 

Wilson, T. J., 304. 

Wilson, T. J., Jr., 304. 

Windham, B. L., 304. 

Windham, T. C, 304. 

Winter, L., 305. 

Wolff, James G., 237. 

Wolff, James H., 237. 

Wood, J. W., 278. 

Wood, N. B., 228. 

Wood, S. W., 305. 

Woods, Granville T., 194, 195, 198, 

257. 
Woods, Lyates, 258. 
Woods, R. C, 266. 
Woodson, Ann, 233. 
Woodson, C. G., 206, 209, 270. 
Woodson, Emma J., 233. 
Woodson, J. W., 206. 
Work, Henry, 243. 
Work, Monroe N., 206, 210. 
Wormley, James, 233, 257. 
Wormley, Mary, 218, 233. 
Wormley, William, 218. 
Wragg, J. P., 278. 
Wright, Elizabeth E., 243. 
Wright, E. J., 237. 
Wright, Herbert R., 254. 
Wright, John M., 298, 305. 
Wright, Mrs. Minnie T., 237. 
Wright, R. R., 206, 218, 268. 
Wright, R. R., Jr., 206, 208, 270, 

277. 
Wright, Theodore S., 230. 
Writt, John T., 305. 
Wych, A. A., 261. 



412 Index to Names 

Wyche, R. P., 227. Young, Major Charles, 206, 208, 

Wynn, Robert D., 279. 247, 248. 

Young, James H., 228. 
Yates, Iola D., 237. Young, Mrs. M. L., 305. 

Yerb, William J., 254. Young, Nathan B., 210, 268. 



GENERAL INDEX 






mntus, 71. 
jolitionists, 342-344. 
ihievement of Negroes, 183-184, 
a93. 

timixture of blood. See Amal- 
gamation. 

idvance Guard," 194. 
friea, South, 71-77; Bastaards, 
74-75; classes in, 75-76; color 
line in, 75; illicit sex relations, 
75; intermarriage in, 75; mixed- 
blood people in, 72; mixture of 
races, 71; population of, 71; 
race prejudice in, 76; race sep- 
aration in, 75. 
jgitation, effect of, 371-374. 
gitators, mulatto, 346, 380-381. 
malgamation, 17, 77, 86. See, 
also, Intermarriage, intermixture 
of races. 

mbition of mulatto, 315-318. 
merica, South, 33-51, 88. 
merican Indians. See Indians. 
hglo-Indians. See Eurasians, 
htipathy, race, 25, 317-319. See, 
|also, Race prejudice, 
nti-slavery propaganda, 342. 
pache, 78. 

rabs, half-caste, 28. 
rawak Indians, 65. 
rt, Negro in, 286-292. 
ksimilation in ancient times, 26. 
ttitude; of Northern mulattoes, 
368-374; of races in Spanish 
America, 40-41; toward first 
American Negroes, 166-168. 
ixiliary wives, 22. 

ickward race, definition of, 18. 

inks, Negro, 295-297, 307. 

astaards, 71-75. 

bgraphy of Negroes, 221-231, 

237-245. 






Bi-racial, 355, 358-360, 373-374. 
Boston Negroes, 233-237. 
Brazil, 27, 88. 
Brazilian Negro, Roosevelt on, 

323-324. 
Business, Negro in, 293-307. 
Business League, Negro, 289, 298- 

306, 307. 

Cannibalism, 63. 

Cascos, 13. 

Caste, basis for, 19; accommoda- 
tion to, 360, 371 ; in primitive 
society, 21. 

Cherokee, 85. 

Children, treatment of half-caste, 
95-96. 

Civilized Tribes, 81, 82, 84. 

Class distinctions; in Cuba, 59; 
in Jamaica, 68; in Philippine 
Islands, 52-53; in Spain, 24; in 
Spanish America, 44-49; South 
Africa, 73. 

Classes, influence of, on race inter- 
mixture, 90-92. 

Color line; among American In- 
dians, 85; among Negroes, 177- 
179; in Brazil, 36-37; in Cuba, 
57; in Haiti, 63; in Jamaica, 67; 
in South Africa, 75; in Spanish 
America, 47. 

Color prejudice; in Spanish Am- 
erica, 50; in Cuba, 60. See, 
also, Race prejudice. 

Coloured, defined, 14. 

Coloured peoples, 27; of Jamaica, 
316; of South Africa, 27. 

Comanche, 78. 

Communication, effect on race in- 
termixture, 16. 

Competition, as affecting race 
prejudice, 101, 338. 

Concubinage, 28-29; 139-144; 378. 



413 



414 



General Index 



Croatans, 81, 85. 

Cuba, 57-60; color inferiority in, 
325-326; mulatto in, 326. 

Dance, 60, 88; orgiastic, 62. 
Dentistry, Negro in, 262-263, 291. 
Determination of racial type, 327. 
Differentiation among slaves, 169- 

172. 
Disorganization in South, 349. 
Distribution of mulattoes, 113, 

122-124. 
Divide and Rule, policy of, 333. 
Douglass, Frederick, 317. 

Early American Negroes, 190-192. 

Educated classes, 395. 

Education of Negro, 339, 350; 

Woodson's, 231-233. 
Eminent Negroes, 197-199. 
Enfranchisement of Negroes, 350. 
Escapement from the race, 396. 
Eskimo half-castes, 27, 31-32, 316. 
Ethnological distinctions, 47. 
Eurasians, 26-31, 316. 
Exclusion policy, 334-335. 
Exogamy, 21. 

Famous colored women, 201-202. 
Famous Negroes, 199-201. 
Fertility of mixed marriages, 83. 
Foremost men of the race, 207- 

210. 
Formation of primitive state, 97- 

98. 
Free mulattoes, 176-177. 
Free Negroes, 112-113. 
Freedman's Bureau, 347. 
French-Canadians, 77. 

Greeks, 22. 

Greenland, 31, 88. 

Griffe, 12. 

Griquas. See Bastaards. 

Haiti, 61-65; civilization of, 61-62; 
classes in, 64; color line in, 63; 
dress, 65; education in, 63-65; 
marriage in, 62-64; political con- 
ditions, 62; population of, 63; 
presidents of, 65; race hatred 
in, 65; religion in, 62-63. 



Half-breed; as a separate cast< 
328-331; illegitimate origin o: 
88; increase in numbers, 93-94 
psychology of, 19; treatment o| 
chlldlren, 95-96. See, als( 
Eurasians. 

Hindu. See Eurasians. 

Histories of the race, 216-220. 

Hopi Indians, 80, 81. 

Hybrid, variability of, 12. 

Hybridization, 28. 

Ideals of the Negro, 180-181. 

Illicit sex relations, 145-155, 37£ 
classes involved, 145-155; durin 
colonial times, 144-155; effect o| 
freedom on, 160-161; effect o 
slavery on, 158-160; indenture 
servants, 146-150; white wome 
and Indians, 155; white wome 
and Negroes, 153-155; slav 
owners and slaves, 145-146. 

Immigrants in Spanish Americ; 
38. 

Indentured servants, 146-150. 

India, 88. 

Indians, 77-85; as slaves, 82; whit 
crosses, 28; fertility of, 83; hall 
breed, 78-85, 317; Hopi, 81-8£ 
intermixture, 77-79; Iroquoi 
77-78; Navajo, 81; Negro intei 
mixture, 82-83; Oklahoma, 81 
Osage, 85; race problem amonji 
84-85; St. Regis, 81; Wyar 
dots, 84. 

Inquisition, 25. 

Industrial education, 381. 

Intermarriage, 69, 94-95, 127-13! 
316, 378; classes involved, 13( 
131; 136-137; in Brazil, 36; i 
Greenland, 32; in South Afric.' 
75; in Spain, 24; in Spanis 
America, 48-50; laws concerning 
128-130, 134; Negro and Indiai 
155-158. 

Intermixture of races, 15-16, 395 
394; among American Indian 
78-79 ; conditions determining 
88-93; effect of, on civilizatioi 
17; in ancient world, 22-23; i 
Brazil, 33-38; in Cuba, 57-6C 
in Greenland, 31-33; in Hait 
61-65; in India, 27-31; i 



General Index 



415 



Jamaica, 65-71; in North Am- 
erican Indian group, 77-85; in 
Philippines, 51-54; in primitive 
society, 21-22; in Spain, 23-26; 
in Spanish America, 38-51; in 
South Africa, 71-77; in West 
Indies, 55-71; when a problem, 
17-18. 

nventors, Negro, 256-259, 291. 

roquois, 77-78. 

slam, policy of, 24. 
Isolation, 359, 383, 390-391. 

Jamaica, 65-71; classes, 66; edu- 
cation, 67; population, 66; rela- 
tion of sexes, 67; separation of 
colors, 67-68; Spanish occupancy 
of, 65. 

Johnson, Jack, 317. 

journalism, Negro in, 286, 291. 

Kafirs, 73. 

Key to race problem, 86-104. 

Law, Negro in, 263-264, 291. 
Leadership, Negro, 364, 366-367, 

395. 
Literature, Negro in, 282-286, 291 ; 

of Negroes, 388. 
L'Ouverture. See Toussaint. 

Mango, 13. 

Manitoba, mixed-bloods in, 77. 

Manumission, 339. 

Marabon, 12. 

Meamelouc, 12. 

Medicine, Negro in, 259-263, 291. 

Mestizo, 27, 33; Chinese, 27, 51- 

54, in Spanish America, 40; 

social position of, in Spanish 

America, 46-49; in Mexico, 44; 

Spanish, 27, 51-52. 
Metif, 12. 
Metis, 27, 33-38, 316-317; advance 

of, 320-323; characteristics of, 

34-35. 
Mexico, races in, 43-44. 
Middle-class, growth of, 358. 
Migrations, 14-15. 
Ministry, Negroes in, 274-282, 291. 
Miscegenation, 22; in Brazil, 33; 



in Greenland, 31-33; in India, 28. 
See, also, Intermarriage. Amal- 
gamation. Intermixture of 
races. 

Mixed-blood caste, 376. 

Mixed-blood race. See Half- 
breed. 

Mixed-bloods as a cohesive force, 
22. 

Mixed marriages. See Intermar- 
riage. 

Mixture of blood, 22, 375. 

Mongrel type, 28. 

Moriscos, 24. 

Mulattoes; as leaders, 341, 360- 
364; caste, 316; children of 
white women, 175-176; definition 
of, 11-14; Hall, 110; improve- 
ment of, 396-397; increase of, 
118-122; key to race problem, 
86-104; militant, 371; number 
of, 116-118; pride in color, 395- 
396; problem of, 19; sentiments 
of, 341, 343; societies, 340; su- 
periority of, 339, 395. 

Music, Negro in, 289-291. 

Musical tradition, 388-389. 

Mustifee, 13. 

Mustifino, 13. 

Natal. See South Africa. 

National Association for the Ad- 
vancement of the Colored 
People, 370. 

Nationalities, composition of, 16. 

Nationality; effect of , on economic 
competition, 392-393; effect of, 
on education, 391-392; effect of, 
on intermixture of races, 393; 
effect of, on isolation, 390-391; 
effect of, on race friction, 394; 
tendency toward, 383; sentiment 
of, in Roman colonies, 23. 

Native policy in ancient times, 
26-27. 

Navajo, 81. 

Negro aristocracy, 389-390. 

Negro; Brazilian, 321; business 
league, 298-305 ; disappearance 
of, in Brazil, 38; Indian inter- 
mixture, 82; in history, 188-189; 
middle class, 353-359 ; politicians, 
347-348. 



416 



General Index 



Obstacles to race solidarity, 382- 

383. 
Occupational differentiation, 339. 
Octoroon, 13. 
Oklahoma, 81. 

Opportunities of mulattoes, 378. 
Origin of mixed-bloods, 88, 376. 
Osage, 85. 

Persistence of negroid character- 
istics, 105. 

Philippine Islands, 51-54. 

Phoenicians, 22. 

Physical appearance, as basis for 
class distinctions, 18-19. 

Politicians, Negro, 346-347. 

Politics, Negro in, 249-256, 291. 

Polygamy, 62, 64. 

Porto Rico, 56. 

Portuguese, 88; in Brazil, 33ff.; 
in India, 28. 

Prestige of mulattoes, 363. 

Presuppositions, 375-376. 

Professional classes, 395. 

Property-owning class, 395. 

Psychology of mixed-bloods, 19, 
102-103. 

Quadroon, 13. 
Quarteron, 12. 

Race; competition, 392-393; de- 
fined, 14; friction, 76, 394; har- 
mony, 100; hatred, 48, 65; inter- 
mixture (see Intermixture of 
races); pride, 21; repugnance, 
28; separation, 75, 385-386. 

Race prejudice, 70; basis for, 18; 
as affected by numbers, 99-100; 
growth of, in American colonies, 
167-168; in Philippines, 53; in 
South Africa, 76. 

Race problem, 85; defined, 18-19; 
in Jamaica, 70; in Spain, 24. 

Race solidarity, absence of, in 
North, 366-368; consequences of, 
390ff. See, also, Nationality. 

Races and classes in Spanish Am- 
erica, 40. 

Races, relative tendency toward 
intermixture, 88-90. 

Races; biological effect of cross- 



ing, 13; distribution of, 

Spanish America, 42-43. 
Reconstruction policy, 347. 
Rizal, 53. 
Role of mulatto, 104, 380-3: 

338ff., 377, 315ff., 320. 
Romans, mixture with subje 

peoples, 23. 

Sacrata, 12. 

St. Regis, 81. 

Sambo, 13. 

Sang-mele, 12. 

Santo Domingo, 56. 

Segregation, 355ff., 384-385. 

Self-interest, 387-388. 

Self-respect, 387. 

Separation of colors in Jamaid 
68. 

Sexual selection, 38. 

Slave traffic, 106-107. 

Slavery; domestic, 27; effect ■ 
race intermixture, 92-94 ; 
Cuba, 57; in ancient times, 2 
in West Indies, 55ff.; of India 
in Spanish America, 39. 

Slaves; classes among, 172-17 
distribution of, 108. 

Snake worship, 63. 

Social; classes in Cuba, 58-59; di 
tinction in Jamaica, 68; equs 
ity, 319-320, 349; separatio 
See Color line. 

Soldiers, Negro, 246-249, 291. 

Southern mulatto leaders, 361 ff. 

Southern policy, 353ff. 

Spain; mixture of races in, 2! 
race problem in, 24-25. 

Spanish America, 33ff. 

Spanish half-breeds, 317. 

Statistics of mulattoes, 106. 

Status of mixed-bloods, 96, 33 
336; as affected by physical a] 
pearanee, 98; as affected by cu 
tural differences of races, 99; i 
slaves, 174-177; in Brazil, 31 
38; in Cuba, 325-326; in Indi 
316, 328-330; in Greenland, 31( 
in Spanish America, 326-327; i 
Jamaica, 331-333. 

Status of Negroes in North, 364i 

Status of slaves, 167-168. 

Students, Negro, 270-274. 



Superior mulattoes, per cent of, 

311-314. 
Superiority of mulattoes, 101-102, 

181, 187-188, 379. 

♦'Talented Tenth," 196-197. 
Teachers, Negro, 264-274, 291. 
Toussaint, 64. 
Tradition of mulatto superiority, 

378-379. 
Tuskegee. See Southern Policy. 

"Uncle Tom's Cabin," 344. 

Variability of mixed-bloods, 83- 
84. 



General Index 



417 



Voluntary segregation, 386-387. 
Voodooism, 62. 

Waltz. See Dance. 

Washington, policy of. See South- 
ern policy. 

West Indies, 55-71, 88. 

"Whites by Law," 27. 

"Who's Who in Colored America," 
202-206. 

Women, influence of, on race in- 
termixture, 91-92. 

Wyandots, 84. 

Zambos, 33. 



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